Symbiotic AI: What is the Role of Trustworthiness?

The design, development, and use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is crucial in modern society. The traditional design of AI systems focuses on models with very high performances without highlighting how relevant the role of humans is in this context. To create AI systems that suit end users’ needs and preferences, it is important to involve them in each phase of the system lifetime cycle. AI systems must present interfaces and interaction paradigms that enhance users’ cognitive models, ensuring usability and a positive User Experience (UX). In this new scenario, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and AI contaminate each other leading to reach the human-AI symbiosis. Researchers should shift the focus toward Symbiotic AI (SAI) systems, which aims to enhance humans’ abilities without replacing them. This manuscript presents preliminary considerations for the creation of a framework to design high-quality SAI systems and metrics that can be employed to appropriately evaluate them. Being a novel field, it focuses on the current investigation regarding the definition of the properties of SAI systems, stressing the importance of Trustworthiness, and whether new design principles for SAI systems can be extracted from the AI act.