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"It makes you think": Provocations Help Restore Critical Thinking to AI-Assisted Knowledge Work

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arxiv 2501.17247 v1 pith:G2MOPPKB submitted 2025-01-28 cs.HC

Ian Drosos , Advait Sarkar , Xiaotong (Tone) Xu , Neil Toronto This is my paper · ORCID
classification cs.HC
keywords provocationsworkcriticalknowledgethinkingai-assisteduserdesign
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Recent research suggests that the use of Generative AI tools may result in diminished critical thinking during knowledge work. We study the effect on knowledge work of provocations: brief textual prompts that offer critiques for and propose alternatives to AI suggestions. We conduct a between-subjects study (n=24) in which participants completed AI-assisted shortlisting tasks with and without provocations. We find that provocations can induce critical and metacognitive thinking. We derive five dimensions that impact the user experience of provocations: task urgency, task importance, user expertise, provocation actionability, and user responsibility. We connect our findings to related work on design frictions, microboundaries, and distributed cognition. We draw design implications for critical thinking interventions in AI-assisted knowledge work.

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Cited by 3 Pith papers

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