Interacting with Adaptive Systems

This chapter concerns user responses toward adaptive and autonomous system behavior. The work consists of a review of the relevant literature off-set with the findings from three studies that investigated the way people respond to adaptive and autonomous agents. The systems evaluated in this chapter make decisions on behalf of the user, behave autonomously and need user feedback or compliance. Apart from the need for systems to competently perform their tasks, people will see adaptive and autonomous system behavior as social actions. Factors from humans’ social interaction will therefore also play a role in the experience users will have when using the systems. The user needs to trust, understand and control the system’s autonomous actions. In some cases the users need to invest effort in training the system so that it can learn. This indicates a complex relationship between the user, the adaptive and autonomous system and the specific context in which the system is used. This chapter specifically evaluates the way people trust and understand a system as well as the effects of system transparency and autonomy.