A Temporary Framework for Exploring Human-AI Relationships

This chapter presents a provisional framework for reading the three design cases introduced in Part II. As AI permeates things, the human-thing relationship can no longer be neatly summarized by the single term tool. Even the same technology can feel intimate depending on its context and the role users expect it to play, maintaining distance as a social entity or sometimes occupying a position of authority. Rather than creating a classification system that inherently explains this diversity, this chapter proposes a framework as a thinking tool to illustrate how different relational configurations contrast, even within a limited exploration. The frame consists of two axes. First, relational distance indicates the degree of intimacy and emotional closeness. Second, relational hierarchy focuses on how responsibility and initiative are distributed within the relationship. These axes draw inspiration from interpersonal relationship theory. However, they are considered simplified devices, not to equate human-AI relationships with interpersonal ones, but to capture in explainable language the sense of relationship that transcends the tools we actually experience today. Finally, this chapter positions three design research cases, Beau, Areca, and ShamAIn, at different points within this framework, foreshadowing the directions of relational possibilities that subsequent chapters will explore.