ConvXAI : Delivering Heterogeneous AI Explanations via Conversations to Support Human-AI Scientific Writing
Open accessAbstract
Despite a surge collection of XAI methods, users still struggle to obtain required AI explanations. Previous research suggests chatbots as dynamic solutions, but the effective design of conversational XAI agents for practical human needs remains under-explored. This paper focuses on Conversational XAI for AI-assisted scientific writing tasks. Drawing from human linguistic theories and formative studies, we identify four design rationales: “multifaceted”, “controllability”, “mix-initiative”, “context-aware drill-down”. We incorporate them into an interactive prototype, ConvXAI 1, which facilitates heterogeneous AI explanations for scientific writing through dialogue. In two studies with 21 users, ConvXAI outperforms a GUI-based baseline on improving human-perceived understanding and writing improvement. The paper further discusses the practical human usage patterns in interacting with ConvXAI for scientific co-writing2.
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Cites
5th International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR 17)
Havrylov, S., & Titov, I. (2017) · Cited by 3,503 · see citing works
Anchors: High-Precision Model-Agnostic Explanations
Ribeiro, M. T., Singh, S., & Guestrin, C. (2018) · Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence · doi:10.1609/aaai.v32i1.11491 · Cited by 2,162 · cited 3× · see citing works
“, named “global explanations”) [62], where our study covers both of them.”
BackgroundMethodQuestioning the AI: Informing Design Practices for Explainable AI User Experiences
Liao, Q. V., Gruen, D., & Miller, S. (2020) · Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3313831.3376590 · Cited by 925 · see citing works
Rethinking Explainability as a Dialogue: A Practitioner's Perspective
Lakkaraju, H., Slack, D., Chen, Y., Tan, C., & Singh, S. (2022) · arXiv · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2202.01875 · Cited by 62 · see citing works
Shen, H., & Huang, T.-H. (2020) · Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Human Computation and Crowdsourcing · doi:10.1609/hcomp.v8i1.7477 · Cited by 32 · see citing works
Self-citationAre Shortest Rationales the Best Explanations for Human Understanding?
Shen, H., Wu, T., Guo, W., et al. (2022) · Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) · doi:10.18653/v1/2022.acl-short.2 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Self-citationParachute: Evaluating Interactive Human-LM Co-writing SystemsPreprint
Shen, H., & Wu, T. (2023) · arXiv (Cornell University) · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2303.06333 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
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Research works printed but not linked: 2
- Dan Jurafsky. 2000. Speech & language processing. Pearson Education India.
- Hua Shen and Ting-Hao'Kenneth' Huang. 2021. Explaining the Road Not Taken. ACM CHI 2022 Workshop on Human-Centered Explainable AI (2021).
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Co-Writing with AI, on Human Terms: Aligning Research with User Demands Across the Writing Process
Reza, M., Thomas-Mitchell, J., Dushniku, P., Laundry, N., Williams, J. J., & Kuzminykh, A. (2025) · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1145/3757566 · Cited by 37 · see citing works
He, G., Demartini, G., & Gadiraju, U. (2025) · Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3706598.3713218 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
Where Do I 'Add the Egg'?: Exploring Agency and Ownership in AI Creative Co-Writing Systems
Carrera, D., Thomas-Mitchell, J., & Wigdor, D. (2026) · Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3772318.3791952 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
- Authors
- Shen, H., Huang, C.-Y., Wu, T., & Huang, T.-H. K.
- Affiliations
- Pennsylvania State University (US)
- Carnegie Mellon University (US)
- Venue
- Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2023-10-14
- Pages
- 384-387
- OpenAlex
- W4387606298
- Cited by
- 42
- References
- 7
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 18 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 3
- FWCI
- 7.46
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) (publishedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI)
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Usability and User Interface Design
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Innovative Human-Technology Interaction
- Keywords
- explainable AI, chatbots, AI-assisted scientific writing, dialogue design, controllability
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