📢 AI is changing the way we create, learn, & reason.
But is it augmenting human cognition, or dulling it?

Please submit your ideas to our #HCI Special Issue: Generative AI in Tools for Thought.

Abstract Deadline: Oct 10, 2025 → tinyurl.com/t4tcfp

📢 Parents! If you know or have high school students interested in STEM, check out this research opportunity. We are inviting high school students to participate in a study on an AI-supported tool that creates interactive STEM simulations for learning! Details below:

If you are a science teacher in the US, please consider participating in our study!! Details below:

Should AI writing tools move beyond chat-based models? What do you think of our layered paradigm? Check out our paper and let us know!! [9/n] @stanfordhai.bsky.social @stanfordgse.bsky.social

Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2502.10638

Video Figure: youtu.be/PWr8uEpxOt0

Example use case: A journalist drafting a feature can test multiple ledes, refine sections with Feedback Felix, adjust tone with Tone Tara, and merge the best parts—all without breaking flow. [6/n]

The two key interactions:
📝 Scripting → Generate, edit, and refine specific parts of a document
📚 Shifting → Rearrange, combine, or test different structural variations in your writing [3/n]

Current AI-assisted writing interfaces are disruptive. They are either too rigid, too complex, or chat-based, forcing writers into an unnatural back-and-forth. Momin @momins.bsky.social developed a new layered interface paradigm that makes AI-assisted writing more intuitive #CHI2025 [1/n] 👇

Excited to co-organize this #CHI2025 workshop on Tools for Thought! 🎉 Join us in exploring how Generative AI can understand, protect, and augment human cognition. Submit your work to help shape this critical conversation!

🔗 Details & Submission: aka.ms/toolsforthou...
⏳ Deadline: Feb 13, 2025 (AoE)

But with LLMs, you have an interaction model where (1) operational scope is not restricted to pre-programmed tasks, i.e., no well-defined action space, (2) all kinds of inputs are allowed with an “anything goes” approach, and (3) outputs are probabilistic rather than determinate.

In conventional HCI design, good interfaces minimize the “gulf” between execution and evaluation (aka the Norman Model). They do this through well-designed interface *actions* and *affordances* aligned with users’ system *mental models*.

#CHI2024 Paper: Using tools like ChatGPT can feel like the Hot-or-Cold guessing game, finding the right prompt to get the response you want! We examine the cognitive challenges people face in translating their intentions into prompts and make recommendations for Generative AI app designers