What Happens When Humans Believe Their Teammate is an AI? An Investigation into Humans Teaming with Autonomy

This paper applies qualitative methods to explore how the perceived composition of a team (how many humans and how many agents on the team) affects sentiments toward teammates, team processes, cognitive states, and the emergence of a system of team cognition. A total of 46 teams completed a teamwork simulation task and were interviewed afterwards regarding their teamwork experience. All of the teams were comprised of only humans; however, two conditions were led to believe that their teammate(s) were autonomous agents. Interviews were analyzed using grounded theory and the Gioia methodology, which revealed thematic differences between the team compositions. In light of the paper’s results, it offers a new model that describes how early-stage action teams achieve effective team processes and emergent cognitive states.