The Matrix of AI Agency: On the Demarcation Problem in Social Theory
Abstract
Recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) make the question of machine agency a pressing matter. Contrary to the idea that agency is the inherent quality of a system, we argue that agency should be seen as a social status, or more precisely, a socially granted license to issue actions that is acquired and monitored in social practices. From this perspective, we develop criteria for the theoretical demarcation of agents and nonagents to distinguish entities based on their attributed abilities and their relative power in social networks. We derive a matrix of different types of agents and show how this matrix can inform empirical studies on AI.
Metadata is indexed. Open-access discovery has not completed for this record yet.
No local PDF is available.
GROBID Extracted text; discontinued.
This text is generated from TEI extraction for accessibility, search, and TTS. Formulas, tables, figures, page layout, and references may not perfectly match the original PDF.
No accessible text representation is available. The text extraction service has been discontinued for the time being. If you require this service, for accessibility or any other reason, please submit an issue/request on this page.
Metadata
Issues
No public issues have been filed for this DOI.
Submit an issue
Record history
| When | Event | Field | Old | New |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-06-18 19:37:53.011249+00:00 | identifier_assigned | DSEID | DSEID-001-2777978 |