@kgajos@hci.social

· 18mo ago

Congratulations to (soon to be) Dr. Zana Buçinca (@zbucinca@hci.social) for defending her dissertation yesterday!

In her PhD, Zana demonstrated that human cognitive engagement moderates the effectiveness of AI support in human decision making, she introduced cognitive forcing functions, and has launched the new sub-field of worker-centric AI.

Her upcoming #CHI2025 paper on Contrastive Explanations That Anticipate Human Misconceptions exemplifies this latest direction in her work.

https://iis.seas.harvard.edu/papers/bucinca2025contrastive.pdf

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Krzysztof Gajos @kgajos@hci.social

· 12mo ago

@katharina@hci.social's Digital Culture Shock book has finally hit the shelves! Broadly, the book demonstrates that digital technologies are designed on a set of assumptions about human perception, cognition, behavior and values that are not universal; it then evaluates the cost of such mismatches.

In Ch 3 (the first one I've read) it shows how a mismatch between the design and what is "culturally natural" for a person can incur substantial cognitive tax.

Looking forward to more!

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691255811/digital-culture-shock

press.princeton.edu

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Krzysztof Gajos @kgajos@hci.social

· 10mo ago

Replying to

But the presence of decision recommendations is a concerns for some doctors. Doctors may be seen as more liable if they disagree with AI. There is a clash here: the presence of AI tools may diminish doctors' authority (because of the pressure to agree) without taking on any of the responsibility.

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Krzysztof Gajos @kgajos@hci.social

· 17mo ago

@zbucinca@hci.social's latest #chi2025 paper shows that people who receive AI decision recommendations supported by contrastive explanations (choose A instead of B because..) help people grow their skills. But this only happens if the alternative (the B in the contrastive explanations) is something that people would plausibly consider. This important because earlier work showed that people do not learn when AI provides conventional explanations (reasons for/against a decision).

https://iis.seas.harvard.edu/papers/bucinca2025contrastive.pdf

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Krzysztof Gajos @kgajos@hci.social

· 10mo ago

MIT front page includes links to a video titled "A world without MIT" and another "Contributions to the nation". I found them a welcome counterpoint to typical research news which focuses on a single advance and its potential for future impact. It is important for research community to also share more holistic syntheses relating a series of research advances to impacts that people can relate to. MIT videos are larger in scope than what I had in mind but still inspiring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04JCB9GT64c

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Krzysztof Gajos @kgajos@hci.social

· 15mo ago

Replying to

Johann Hari's 2015 TED talk summarizes relevant research well. It is also where I got the quote "the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, it is connection" from. https://www.ted.com/talks/johann_hari_everything_you_think_you_know_about_addiction_is_wrong

ted.com

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Krzysztof Gajos @kgajos@hci.social

· 17mo ago

Replying to

Zilin's (@zm003) most recent paper investigates how AI could augment the work of front line humanitarian negotiators and introduces a system that embodies these ideas. Rather than giving negotiators suggestions for what to do next, the system operationalizes information synthesis techniques that negotiators already use and helps them identify facts, values, issues, and respective bottom lines and red lines. This leaves negotiators in charge & gives them flexible options. https://iis.seas.harvard.edu/papers/ma2025chatgpt.pdf

iis.seas.harvard.edu

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Krzysztof Gajos @kgajos@hci.social

· 16mo ago

Replying to

However, it is very likely that we will have many fewer openings for new PhD students next year.

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Krzysztof Gajos @kgajos@hci.social

· 9mo ago

Join me as a colleague at Harvard School of Engineering. We are looking for a Lecturer in Engineering Design to become part of our Master of Design Engineering program. It is a full time position but limited to 3 years.

https://academicpositions.harvard.edu/postings/15651

academicpositions.harvard.edu

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