When Intelligence Becomes Agency: A Theory of Governed, Proactive Agency for Symbiotic AI Systems
Researchers propose a formal framework for governed proactive AI agency, linking activation decisions to continuing authorization, accountability, and bounded delegation in symbiotic systems.
The paper defines the activation problem: persistent AI assistants must decide whether a situation warrants behavior, and whether to act, ask, monitor, defer, or deliberately refrain. It distinguishes autonomous from delegated agency and defines symbiotic agency as delegation under a standing, revocable mandate, coupled to the principal's situation with calibrated inference and bounded personalization. The framework links activation decisions to authorized perception, behavior selection, authority containment, traceable restraint, and constrained adaptation, and provides an agency classification method, evaluation framework, benchmark scenarios, and reference architecture for always-present assistants and embodied support systems.
- Introduces the activation problem: when proactive assistants should act, ask, defer, or refrain
- Defines symbiotic agency as delegation under a standing, revocable mandate
- Distinguishes autonomous from delegated agency and ties activation to authorized perception
- Provides classification method, evaluation framework, benchmark scenarios, and reference architecture
Full article239 words · extracted from arxiv.org · click to collapse
Persistent AI assistants are intended to extend human attention, memory, and coordination across changing digital and physical environments. To be truly useful they must do more than just act when asked. They must decide on their own whether a situation warrants behavior at all, when it does and in what mode, whether to act, ask, monitor, defer or deliberately refrain. We call this the activation problem. Research on commitment, appraisal, mixed-initiative interaction and delegation each illuminates part of it, but none ties situated activation to continuing authorization and accountability. This paper develops a conceptual and formal framework for governed proactive agency, organizing behavior across time through perception, intent, affective-conative appraisal, constraint, and feedback. It distinguishes autonomous and delegated agency and defines symbiotic agency as delegation under a standing, revocable mandate, with continuing coupling to the principal's situation, calibrated inference of their condition, and bounded personalization. The distinctive contribution is an integrated account linking activation decisions to authorized perception, behavior selection, authority containment, traceable restraint, and constrained adaptation, with behavioral episodes as the unit of analysis. Through an agency classification method, an evaluation framework, proposed benchmark scenarios, and a reference architecture, the account provides a basis for specifying and assessing whether assistance is warranted, timely, authorized, and answerable beyond task completion alone. It is intended to guide the development and evaluation of always-present personal assistants and embodied support systems that augment human capabilities while preserving the principal's authority and judgment.
Text extracted automatically; images, tables and formatting may be missing. Original: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.07741