Marco Dehnert
Biographic Data
| ID | 940014 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Marco Dehnert |
| GIVEN NAMES | Marco |
| FAMILY NAME | Dehnert |
| SIGNATURE | DEHNERT M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Arizona State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7456-0743 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 18 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
On-Demand Intimacy: The Sociotechnical Appeal of AI Companions
As a burgeoning industry, artificial intelligence (AI) companion platforms capitalize on shifting societal attitudes toward tech-mediated relationships to introduce novel ways of connecting with nonhuman entities. But how are these platforms constituted, and how do they “sell” consumers the idea of human-AI relationships? By analyzing four prominent multimodal companions (AvatarOne, Digi, Paradot, and Replika), we argue that despite differences i…
The Communicative Construction of Care: Evidence for Subjectively Reciprocal Relations Between Humans and Machines
As artificial entities like sex dolls and robots are being used as sources of companionship, little is known about the communication of care in these contexts. Using a funneled serial interview design of three waves of semi-structured interviews with 29 sex doll and robot owners, our analysis revealed how participants experienced care as communicatively constructed. Findings indicated that participants willingly suspended disbelief and perceived …
The Depolarizing Effect of AI Chatbots: Effects of Interactive News on Belief Perseverance and Information Seeking
Political knowledge is essential to deliberative democracy, yet exposure to political information can polarize a citizen, which poses a threat to democracy. Considering this dilemma, the present study examines a method to inform the electorate that does not polarize them. Conversational artificial intelligence chatbots have this potential. Utilizing a pre-test/posttest experimental design, the differing influences of an AI interaction and exposur…
What HMC Teaches Us About Authenticity
This paper delves into what the application of authenticity to Human-Machine Communication (HMC) can teach us about authenticity and us as HMC researchers and as a com- munity. Inspired by the 2023 pre-conference “HMC: Authenticity in communicating with machines,” two central questions guide the discussion: How does HMC contribute to our understanding of authentic communication with machines? And how can the concept of authenticity contribute to …
I am not a Robot, I am Asexual: A Qualitative Critique of Allonormative Discourses of Ace and Aro Folks as Robots, Aliens, Monsters
Despite exploring other queer topics, communication scholars and rhetoricians are lacking in offering academic inquiries involving asexuality. We engaged in a critical thematic analysis of posts and comments posted from asexual and/or aromantic folks on the online communities of Reddit and AVEN, the Asexuality Visibility & Education Network. The analysis focused on three cultural tropes prominently used when describing asexual and aromantic folks…
Archipelagic Human-Machine Communication: Building Bridges amidst Cultivated Ambiguity
In this commentary, I call for maintaining the archipelagic character of human-machine communication (HMC). Utilizing the metaphor of the archipelago or a chain of connected islands indicates that HMC entails a variety of islands differing in shape, size, location, and proximity to one another. Rather than aiming for conceptual unity and definitional homogeneity, I call for embracing a cultivated ambiguity related to HMC key concepts. Ambiguity i…
Hyper, Broken, and Artificial: How (Not) to Communicate about Climate Change
This rhizomatic essay maps the communicative-geographical dimensions of our current cultural moment in relation to climate change communication, which characterizes climate as hyper and broken, proposing the artificial as the fix to this brokenness. Drawing on more-than-human sensibilities of communication geography, I work through three intricately connected modalities of current cultural discourses in relation to climate. First, hyper allows me…
Beyond ownership: Human–robot relationships between property and personhood
As artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled social robots continue to enter our lifeworlds, we will need to grapple with challenges to assumptions about our relationship to and even with these technological objects. This essay works at the intersection of social robotics, legal studies, and human–machine communication to explore the concept of ownership in human–machine relations. In particular, we draw on more-than-human approaches to ask: To what e…
Sex With Robots and Human-Machine Sexualities: Encounters Between Human-Machine Communication and Sexuality Studies
Sex robots are a controversial topic. Understood as artificial-intelligence enhanced humanoid robots designed for use in partnered and solo sex, sex robots offer ample opportunities for theorizing from a Human-Machine Communication (HMC) perspective. This comparative literature review conjoins the seemingly disconnected literatures of HMC and sexuality studies (SeS) to explore questions surrounding intimacy, love, desire, sex, and sexuality among…
Phantasms in the Halls: A Future University is Possible (or) … a performative response to la paperson, Stefano Harney, Fred Moten, and Julietta Singh
Phantasms in the Halls: A Future University is Possible, is a mediated live performance presented synchronously on Zoom and in person. In this devised ensemble piece, the performers offer a performative response to recent scholarship on the settler colonial university and its significance in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. The work weaves together theories of fugitivity, spectrality, and refusal to offer contextually situated critiques of labo…
Toward a Critical Posthumanism for Social Robotics
Persuasion in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (AI): Theories and Complications of AI-Based Persuasion
Artificial intelligence (AI) has profound implications for both communication and persuasion. We consider how AI complicates and promotes rethinking of persuasion theory and research. We define AI-based persuasion as a symbolic process in which a communicative-AI entity generates, augments, or modifies a message—designed to convince people to shape, reinforce, or change their responses—that is transmitted to human receivers. We review theoretical…
(Counter)Publics, transnationalism, and globalization: Dan Brouwer’s intellectual legacy and methodological touchpoints
Becoming Human? Ableism and Control in Detroit: Become Human and the Implications for Human-Machine Communication
In human-machine communication (HMC), machines are communicative subjects in the creation of meaning. The Computers are Social Actors and constructivist approaches to HMC postulate that humans communicate with machines as if they were people. From this perspective, communication is understood as heavily scripted where humans mindlessly apply human-to-human scripts in HMC. We argue that a critical approach to communication scripts reveals how huma…
Becoming the other: Examining race, gender, and sexuality in Detroit: Become Human
Although the popular choose-your-own-adventure video game Detroit: Become Human is fictional and set in a futuristic time involving humanoid androids, its characters face issues of race, gender, and sexuality that exist today. With unique game mechanics and storytelling choices that enable the formation of parasocial relationships and identification with marginalized game characters, Detroit: Become Human creates an immersive experience for playe…
Communication Geographies of Human-Machine Understanding: Entangled Agencies, Synthetic Aesthetics, and Machine Matterings
This speculative exercise in more-than-human communication geographies of human-machine encounters—what I describe as machine geographies—bypasses reductionistic and replicative responses to the question What does understanding mean in HMC, and rather shifts the focus toward the implications of the question as questioning our very assumptions regarding the machine, the human, the more-than-human, agency, aesthetics, and their respective origins, …
I am not a Robot, I am Asexual: A Qualitative Critique of Allonormative Discourses of Ace and Aro Folks as Robots, Aliens, Monsters
Despite exploring other queer topics, communication scholars and rhetoricians are lacking in offering academic inquiries involving asexuality. We engaged in a critical thematic analysis of posts and comments posted from asexual and/or aromantic folks on the online communities of Reddit and AVEN, the Asexuality Visibility & Education Network. The analysis focused on three cultural tropes prominently used when describing asexual and aromantic folks…
Beyond ownership: Human–robot relationships between property and personhood
As artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled social robots continue to enter our lifeworlds, we will need to grapple with challenges to assumptions about our relationship to and even with these technological objects. This essay works at the intersection of social robotics, legal studies, and human–machine communication to explore the concept of ownership in human–machine relations. In particular, we draw on more-than-human approaches to ask: To what e…
Becoming Human? Ableism and Control in Detroit: Become Human and the Implications for Human-Machine Communication
In human-machine communication (HMC), machines are communicative subjects in the creation of meaning. The Computers are Social Actors and constructivist approaches to HMC postulate that humans communicate with machines as if they were people. From this perspective, communication is understood as heavily scripted where humans mindlessly apply human-to-human scripts in HMC. We argue that a critical approach to communication scripts reveals how huma…
Becoming the other: Examining race, gender, and sexuality in Detroit: Become Human
Although the popular choose-your-own-adventure video game Detroit: Become Human is fictional and set in a futuristic time involving humanoid androids, its characters face issues of race, gender, and sexuality that exist today. With unique game mechanics and storytelling choices that enable the formation of parasocial relationships and identification with marginalized game characters, Detroit: Become Human creates an immersive experience for playe…
Communication Geographies of Human-Machine Understanding: Entangled Agencies, Synthetic Aesthetics, and Machine Matterings
This speculative exercise in more-than-human communication geographies of human-machine encounters—what I describe as machine geographies—bypasses reductionistic and replicative responses to the question What does understanding mean in HMC, and rather shifts the focus toward the implications of the question as questioning our very assumptions regarding the machine, the human, the more-than-human, agency, aesthetics, and their respective origins, …
Sex With Robots and Human-Machine Sexualities: Encounters Between Human-Machine Communication and Sexuality Studies
Sex robots are a controversial topic. Understood as artificial-intelligence enhanced humanoid robots designed for use in partnered and solo sex, sex robots offer ample opportunities for theorizing from a Human-Machine Communication (HMC) perspective. This comparative literature review conjoins the seemingly disconnected literatures of HMC and sexuality studies (SeS) to explore questions surrounding intimacy, love, desire, sex, and sexuality among…
Phantasms in the Halls: A Future University is Possible (or) … a performative response to la paperson, Stefano Harney, Fred Moten, and Julietta Singh
Phantasms in the Halls: A Future University is Possible, is a mediated live performance presented synchronously on Zoom and in person. In this devised ensemble piece, the performers offer a performative response to recent scholarship on the settler colonial university and its significance in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. The work weaves together theories of fugitivity, spectrality, and refusal to offer contextually situated critiques of labo…
Toward a Critical Posthumanism for Social Robotics
Persuasion in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (AI): Theories and Complications of AI-Based Persuasion
Artificial intelligence (AI) has profound implications for both communication and persuasion. We consider how AI complicates and promotes rethinking of persuasion theory and research. We define AI-based persuasion as a symbolic process in which a communicative-AI entity generates, augments, or modifies a message—designed to convince people to shape, reinforce, or change their responses—that is transmitted to human receivers. We review theoretical…
(Counter)Publics, transnationalism, and globalization: Dan Brouwer’s intellectual legacy and methodological touchpoints
Archipelagic Human-Machine Communication: Building Bridges amidst Cultivated Ambiguity
In this commentary, I call for maintaining the archipelagic character of human-machine communication (HMC). Utilizing the metaphor of the archipelago or a chain of connected islands indicates that HMC entails a variety of islands differing in shape, size, location, and proximity to one another. Rather than aiming for conceptual unity and definitional homogeneity, I call for embracing a cultivated ambiguity related to HMC key concepts. Ambiguity i…
Hyper, Broken, and Artificial: How (Not) to Communicate about Climate Change
This rhizomatic essay maps the communicative-geographical dimensions of our current cultural moment in relation to climate change communication, which characterizes climate as hyper and broken, proposing the artificial as the fix to this brokenness. Drawing on more-than-human sensibilities of communication geography, I work through three intricately connected modalities of current cultural discourses in relation to climate. First, hyper allows me…
Beyond ownership: Human–robot relationships between property and personhood
As artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled social robots continue to enter our lifeworlds, we will need to grapple with challenges to assumptions about our relationship to and even with these technological objects. This essay works at the intersection of social robotics, legal studies, and human–machine communication to explore the concept of ownership in human–machine relations. In particular, we draw on more-than-human approaches to ask: To what e…
What HMC Teaches Us About Authenticity
This paper delves into what the application of authenticity to Human-Machine Communication (HMC) can teach us about authenticity and us as HMC researchers and as a com- munity. Inspired by the 2023 pre-conference “HMC: Authenticity in communicating with machines,” two central questions guide the discussion: How does HMC contribute to our understanding of authentic communication with machines? And how can the concept of authenticity contribute to …
I am not a Robot, I am Asexual: A Qualitative Critique of Allonormative Discourses of Ace and Aro Folks as Robots, Aliens, Monsters
Despite exploring other queer topics, communication scholars and rhetoricians are lacking in offering academic inquiries involving asexuality. We engaged in a critical thematic analysis of posts and comments posted from asexual and/or aromantic folks on the online communities of Reddit and AVEN, the Asexuality Visibility & Education Network. The analysis focused on three cultural tropes prominently used when describing asexual and aromantic folks…
The Depolarizing Effect of AI Chatbots: Effects of Interactive News on Belief Perseverance and Information Seeking
Political knowledge is essential to deliberative democracy, yet exposure to political information can polarize a citizen, which poses a threat to democracy. Considering this dilemma, the present study examines a method to inform the electorate that does not polarize them. Conversational artificial intelligence chatbots have this potential. Utilizing a pre-test/posttest experimental design, the differing influences of an AI interaction and exposur…
On-Demand Intimacy: The Sociotechnical Appeal of AI Companions
As a burgeoning industry, artificial intelligence (AI) companion platforms capitalize on shifting societal attitudes toward tech-mediated relationships to introduce novel ways of connecting with nonhuman entities. But how are these platforms constituted, and how do they “sell” consumers the idea of human-AI relationships? By analyzing four prominent multimodal companions (AvatarOne, Digi, Paradot, and Replika), we argue that despite differences i…
The Communicative Construction of Care: Evidence for Subjectively Reciprocal Relations Between Humans and Machines
As artificial entities like sex dolls and robots are being used as sources of companionship, little is known about the communication of care in these contexts. Using a funneled serial interview design of three waves of semi-structured interviews with 29 sex doll and robot owners, our analysis revealed how participants experienced care as communicatively constructed. Findings indicated that participants willingly suspended disbelief and perceived …
Sociology (12 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · Psychology (7 works) · Artificial Intelligence (6 works) · Epistemology (5 works) · Innovative Human-Technology Interaction (5 works) · Ethics and Social Impacts of AI (4 works) · Gender Studies (4 works) · Geographies of human-animal interactions (4 works) · Human sexuality (4 works)