AI-mediated communication is designed to help us do our work more quickly and efficiently. But does it come at a cost? This study uses smart replies (SRs) to show how AI influences humans without any intent on the part of the developer - the very use of AI is sufficient. I propose a loss of agency theory as a viable approach for studying the impact of AI on human agency. This theory focusses on the transfer of agency that is forced by circumstances (such as time pressure), human weaknesses (such as complacency), and conceptual priming. Mixed methods involving a crowdsourced experiment test that theory. The quantitative results reveal that machine agency affects the content we author and the behavior we generate. But it is a non-zero-sum game. The transfers between human and machine agency are fluid; they complement, replace, and reinforce each other at the same time.

翻译：人工智能中介通信旨在帮助我们更快速高效地完成工作，但这是否需要付出代价？本研究利用智能回复（SRs）展示人工智能如何在开发者毫无意图的情况下影响人类——仅仅是使用人工智能本身就足以产生影响。我提出能动性丧失理论作为研究人工智能对人类能动性影响的有效方法。该理论聚焦于因环境压力（如时间紧迫）、人类弱点（如自满）及概念启动而被迫发生的能动性转移。基于众包实验的混合方法检验了这一理论。定量结果表明，机器能动性既影响我们创作的内容，也影响我们生成的行为。但这并非零和博弈：人类与机器能动性之间的转移具有流动性，它们同时相互补充、替代与强化。