Self++: Co-Determined Agency for Human--AI Symbiosis in Extended Reality

Abstract

Self++ is a design blueprint for human-AI symbiosis in extended reality (XR) that preserves human authorship while still benefiting from increasingly capable AI agents. Because XR can shape both perceptual evidence and action, apparently 'helpful' assistance can drift into over-reliance, covert persuasion, and blurred responsibility. Self++ grounds interaction in two complementary theories: Self-Determination Theory (autonomy, competence, relatedness) and the Free Energy Principle (predictive stability under uncertainty). It operationalises these foundations through co-determination, treating the human and the AI as a coupled system that must keep intent and limits legible, tune support over time, and preserve the user's right to endorse, contest, and override. These requirements are summarised as the co-determination principles (T.A.N.): Transparency, Adaptivity, and Negotiability. Self++ organises augmentation into three concurrently activatable overlays spanning sensorimotor competence support (Self: competence overlay), deliberative autonomy support (Self+: autonomy overlay), and social and long-horizon relatedness and purpose support (Self++: relatedness and purpose overlay). Across the overlays, it specifies nine role patterns (Tutor, Skill Builder, Coach; Choice Architect, Advisor, Agentic Worker; Contextual Interpreter, Social Facilitator, Purpose Amplifier) that can be implemented as interaction patterns, not personas. The contribution is a role-based map for designing and evaluating XR-AI systems that grow capability without replacing judgment, enabling symbiotic agency in work, learning, and social life and resilient human development.

Figures (1)

• Figure 1: The nine Self++ role patterns organised across three concurrently activatable overlays, with co-determination principles (T.A.N.) scaling in strength with overlay scope and initiative. Overlay 1 (Self): Competence support. R1 --- Tutor: reduces novice uncertainty through a safe, learnable corridor (e.g., a trainee electrician receives anchored directional arrows, step gating, and ghosted hand exemplars through XR glasses while working on a residential electrical panel). R2 --- Skill Builder: calibrates and generalises skill through variability and augmented feedback (e.g., a training doctor receives real-time motion traces and a holographic accuracy heatmap overlaid onto a practice mannequin during a surgical procedure). R3 --- Coach: builds robustness under stress and supports self-correction (e.g., a cellist receives intonation feedback, fingerboard pressure heatmaps, and metacognitive prompts during a live performance, with social comparison replaced by private progression tracking). Overlay 2 (Self+): Autonomy support. R4 --- Choice Architect: shapes the decision context while preserving authorship (e.g., a person views a floating AR monthly calendar where recovery weeks are gently highlighted and a friction gate requests confirmation before overriding rest days). R5 --- Advisor: externalises deliberation by making counterfactuals and trade-offs inspectable (e.g., an ER doctor sees a branching holographic decision tree with uncertainty bands, survival-confidence estimates, and provenance badges distinguishing AI prognosis from attending physician input). R6 --- Agentic Worker: executes delegated tasks under a proposal-approval loop with rollback (e.g., an air traffic control shift manager oversees an AI-drafted routing queue where conflict items are flagged and rerouted back for manual handling, with any clearance reversible before transmission). Overlay 3 (Self++): Relatedness and purpose support. R7 --- Contextual Interpreter: makes identity, norms, and downstream impacts legible to reduce social surprise (e.g., a firefighter arriving at an incident sees AR-labelled crew roles, building entry points, and provenance badges distinguishing dispatch-confirmed from AI-inferred information). R8 --- Social Facilitator: improves human-to-human coordination and repair (e.g., diplomats at a round-table negotiation receive personalised, opt-in AR overlays including speaking-time balance, perspective-invitation prompts, and neutral micro-summaries of each delegation's position, while embodied virtual agents surface shared precedents as common ground). R9 --- Purpose Amplifier: supports long-horizon value coherence by making future trajectories legible and editable (e.g., a retiring athlete views a holographic value-map converging personal strengths toward an aspiration, with a future-self contrast between drift and purposeful mentorship and editable identity-narrative fields).