AI and the Self: Exploring Identity, Agency, and Relational Personhood

  • Amy McCerery ,
  • Jayne Wallace ,
  • William Gaver ,
  • Kyle Montague ,
  • William Odom ,
  • Samuel Barnett ,
  • Austin L. Toombs ,
  • ,
  • Claire Craig ,
  • Tiago Guerreiro

CHI 2026 Meet-up |

Published by ACM

Publication

HCI research has a strong background of engaging with identity, values, and lived experience [1, 11], and has started to explore the role of technology in contexts such as stroke, bereavement, and dementia [7, 10, 13, 15, 17, 21]. By personhood, we mean the recognition of individuals as whole people with histories, relationships, and capacities for growth, rather than being defined solely by their health, impairments, or vulnerabilities [9, 14]. However, questions of how AI mediates and supports what it means to be a person, remain under-researched. This meet-up will position personhood as a central concern for the future of HCI research. Therefore, we invite CHI attendees to explore how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be designed and used for supporting personhood.