ABOUT THIS ISSUE

How was this newsletter synthesized?

Methodology

This newsletter is generated by an AI pipeline (leveraging Anthropic Sonnet 4.5 & Haiku 4.5) that processes the metadata and abstracts of every new arXiv HCI paper from the past week—143 this issue. Each paper is scored on three dimensions: Practice (applicability for practitioners), Research (scientific contribution), and Strategy (industry implications), with scores from 1-5. Papers passing threshold are grouped into topic clusters, and each cluster is summarized to capture what that body of research is exploring.

Selection Criteria

The pipeline builds a curated selection that balances high scores with topic diversity—and deliberately includes at least one 'contrarian' paper that challenges prevailing assumptions. This selection is then analyzed to identify key findings (patterns across multiple papers) and surprises (results that contradict conventional wisdom). A narrative synthesis ties the week's research together under a unifying frame.

Key Themes Discovered

Field Report: ai-interaction

Trust, Skill, and Agency in AI Interaction

This cluster examines how humans calibrate trust, maintain competence, and preserve agency when working with AI systems. Core tensions emerge: AI assistance boosts productivity while eroding underlying expertise; expert disagreement reflects principled clinical frameworks rather than measurement error; users develop sophisticated interaction patterns to manage AI limitations. Research spans mental health assessment, professional skill formation, educational contexts, and workplace dynamics. The dominant concern is not whether AI works, but how to design interactions that sustain human judgment, learning, and autonomy alongside efficiency gains.

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