When Intelligence Becomes Agency: A Theory of Governed, Proactive Agency for Symbiotic AI Systems
Persistent AI assistants are intended to extend human attention, memory, and coordination across changing digital and physical environments. To be truly useful they must do more than just act when asked. They must decide on their own whether a situation warrants behavior at all, when it does and in what mode, whether to act, ask, monitor, defer or deliberately refrain. We call this the activation problem. Research on commitment, appraisal, mixed-initiative interaction and delegation each illuminates part of it, but none ties situated activation to continuing authorization and accountability. This paper develops a conceptual and formal framework for governed proactive agency, organizing be...
| Authors | João Dias Ferreira |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.AI |
| Published | 7 September 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 7 September 2026 |
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