Voices in and of the machine: Source orientation toward mobile virtual assistants

Research regarding source orientation has demonstrated that when interacting with computers, people direct their communication toward and react toward the technology itself. Users perceive technology to be a source in human-machine communication (HMC). This study provides a new dimension to those findings with regard to source orientation with voice-based, mobile virtual assistants enabled by artificial intelligence (AI). In qualitative interviews regarding their conceptualizations of mobile conversational agents (Apple's Siri, Google Voice, Samsung S-Voice) and their perceptions of interactions with these specific technologies, some participants describe the agent they can hear but not see as a voice in the mobile phone (assistant as distinct entity) while others perceive the technology that they command to be the voice of the phone (assistant as the device). Therefore, congruent with existing research, users of mobile assistants orient toward a technology, instead of thinking they are interacting with a human, but, in contrast to existing research, attend to different technologies. When technologies possess a disembodied voice and are designed with various social cues and degrees of intelligence, the locus and nature of the digital interlocutor is not uniform in people's minds.