The quest for the optimal level of sense of agency in the case of human-operated, AI-enabled robotics

Sense of agency is the subjective feeling of being in control over one’s own actions and their sensory outcomes. Here, we propose that a key feature of sense of agency is its link to intrinsic motivation, which is a key driver for engagement with the environment without external reinforcement. We argue that intrinsic motivation is highest when the sense of agency is experienced at an intermediate level between full control and no control at all. In consequence, we propose that human-operated, artificial intelligence-enabled robotics needs to be designed such that the balance between human sense of agency and the autonomy of the assistive system is achieved, for optimizing the users’ motivation to use the technology, and for improvement of performance. We describe various examples of assistive technologies, ranging from robots in work environments to healthcare robotics, and we discuss how sense of agency is a crucial factor that needs to be accounted for in the engineering endeavor of developing such technologies.