Human-Artificial Interaction in the Age of Agentic AI: A System-Theoretical Approach

This paper presents a novel perspective on human-computer interaction (HCI), framing it as a dynamic interplay between human and computational agents within a networked system. Going beyond traditional interface-based approaches, we emphasize the importance of coordination and communication among heterogeneous agents with different capabilities, roles, and goals. A key distinction is made between multi-agent systems (MAS) and Centaurian systems, which represent two different paradigms of human-AI collaboration. MAS maintain agent autonomy, with structured protocols enabling cooperation, while Centau-rian systems deeply integrate human and AI capabilities, creating unified decision-making entities. To formalize these interactions, we introduce a framework for communication spaces, structured into surface, observation, and computation layers, ensuring seamless integration between MAS and Centaurian architectures, where colored Petri nets effectively represent structured Cen-taurian systems and high-level reconfigurable networks address the dynamic nature of MAS. Our research has practical applications in autonomous robotics, human-in-the-loop decision making, and AI-driven cognitive architectures, and provides a foundation for next-generation hybrid intelligence systems that balance structured coordination with emergent behavior. Keywords: multi-agent systems centaurian systems communication spaces satellite and swarm robots large action models (LAMs). 1 Introduction Agentic AI systems--capable of iterative planning, autonomous task decomposition, and continuous learning--are rapidly reshaping the landscape of human-computer interaction (HCI). Recent advances in Large Language Models (LLMs) and advanced conversational agents have revitalized the field of multi-agent systems, whose roots in Artificial Intelligence predate the current rise of generative AI. Historically, multi-agent systems relied on agents with relatively constrained capabilities; however, the emergence of powerful, conversationally Corresponding author: uwe.borghoff@unibw.de