Can People Distinguish Human and AI Agency in Humanoid Teleoperation? A Preliminary Study of Agency Perception

Can People Distinguish Human and AI Agency in Humanoid Teleoperation? A Preliminary Study of Agency Perception

|Authors: Xiang Li, Koya Dendo, Keigo Minamida, Yuto Nakamura, Per Ola Kristensson, Jun Rekimoto

|Venue: arXiv preprint | Year: 2026

|arXiv: 2609.06434v1

Abstract

Can people distinguish between human and AI agency in humanoid teleoperation? To explore this question, we developed \textit{Ghost-in-the-Loop}, a teleoperation framework that supports both human-operated and AI-generated control of a robot’s voice, facial expressions, and gestures while maintaining a consistent embodiment. We conducted a preliminary online study ($N=50$) in which participants viewed short interaction clips generated by either a Human Operator or an AI Control and judged the perceived source of control. Results suggest that participants often struggled to distinguish between the two conditions in brief interactions. Qualitative responses indicate that judgments were primarily influenced by perceived naturalness, temporal coordination, and consistency across speech, facial expression, and gesture. These findings provide initial insights into agency perception in embodied human—AI communication and motivate future investigations of blended human—AI telepresence systems.

Key Contributions

• Can people distinguish between human and AI agency in humanoid teleoperation?
• To explore this question, we developed \textit{Ghost-in-the-Loop}, a teleoperation framework that…
• We conducted a preliminary online study ($N=50$) in which participants viewed short interaction c…
• Results suggest that participants often struggled to distinguish between the two conditions in br…
• Qualitative responses indicate that judgments were primarily influenced by perceived naturalness,…

Topics

• vision
• reinforcement-learning
• control
• learning-from-demonstration

Code & Data

No code repository linked in paper metadata.

BibTeX

@article{Li2026_260906434v1,
  title     = {Can People Distinguish Human and AI Agency in Humanoid Teleoperation? A Preliminary Study of Agency Perception},
  author    = {Xiang Li and Koya Dendo and Keigo Minamida and Yuto Nakamura and Per Ola Kristensson and Jun Rekimoto},
  year      = {2026},
  eprint    = {2609.06434v1},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  primaryClass  = {cs.HC},
  url       = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.06434v1}
}