Communication and artificial intelligence: new and opportunities and challenges for communication research

Abstract This essay advocates for a significant reorientation and reconceptualization of communication studies in order to accommodate the opportunities and challenges introduced by increasingly intelligent machines. In particular, it demonstrates, on the one hand, how and why the activity of communication has been considered a defining condition for artificial intelligence (AI) and, on the other hand, how the theory of AI and the development of AI applications complicate the subject of communication, requiring significant modifications in its conceptual apparatus and philosophical framework.