Knowledge Communication as an Imitation Game : (About Conceptual and Empirical Boundaries of Co-Construction in Human-Bot Interaction)

This chapter investigates in which ways machines can offer apt representations of knowledge to facilitate a communicant’s co-construction of relevant knowledge in interactional situations. Its aim is to break new ground by exploring the boundary of the co-construction of knowledge in human-bot interaction in that it focuses on the role automated media can take in knowledge construction – so-called automated knowledge communication. By doing so, this chapter opens a critical view on sites where knowledge communication ideas are typically being applied (i.e., to “ordinary” texts, in expert-lay-communication, and in “ordinary” communication). In this context, the concept of semantic networks is modified to also apply to human-bot interaction and to enable an exemplary empirical analysis of a chatbot in the domain of e-governance.