Designing Performative Artifacts for Symmetrical Mediation

This paper introduces some design propositions that aim at enlightening the design of adaptive artificial mediators of social interactions. The argument presented herein is framed in the context of working definitions of cooperation and collaboration; two forms of social interaction based on mechanisms in which parties mutually recognize their intentionality, recognize each other’s agency, and operate under different balances of privileges and obligations. Through the analysis of interactions with adaptive mediators, the paper concludes in four design propositions that subjunctive design language could yield better outcomes when adaptive artifacts foster cooperative interactions, whereas prescriptive ones work better in collaborative interactions. Moreover, it proposes that prescriptive symbolic languages should be preferred when the mediation is about an imbalanced distribution of resources.