RT: Hi Yuewen, thanks for chatting with me! Let’s start off with a bit about your background and your path here to the Center.

Yuewen: It’s a bit of an interesting story. I did my undergrad at NYU with a double major in math and computer science. Before declaring my major, I took a lot of other humanities courses while there, like design, history of philosophy, art history, things like that. Then I did my masters at Cornell Tech in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) where I worked in the People-Aware Computing Lab focusing on mental health technologies. 

RT: Math and computer science doesn’t seem like something that would naturally flow into HCI, how did you end up pursuing that?

Yuewen: Well I’ve always been drawn towards design, but I never really felt it was the kind of field I wanted to be my career–I just don’t see myself being able to sit in a studio drawing things (at least that was my naive imagination of a designer job back then…) But during undergrad I took some web development and interactive media art classes. These introduced me to HCI and it just felt like the perfect fit for me. 

RT: Is there a specific subfield of HCI that you’re most interested in?

Yuewen: So, as a pre-doctoral researcher here, I mainly focus on AI-mediated communication and the psychological processes people have when they're using such technologies like AI chatbots. 

RT: And what are some of the projects you’re working on currently?

Yuewen: I’m working on a couple projects at the moment, including one on AI-induced delusions or mental spirals, and another on how psychological mindsets impact human creative ideation when collaborating with AI. 

I’m collaborating with researchers across Stanford to systematically study the lived experience of AI chatbot users from a personal narrative perspective. The short-term goal here is to elicit design implications for AI-interaction design that prioritizes user wellbeing. I am also working with Jeff [Hancock] to explore how we can use AI to personalize and bridge interdisciplinary discussion in a graduate seminar. For that project, we are interviewing students and deploying a tech evaluation to a class to conduct a formative study.

For the research on mindsets, I’m working on a project on AI and creativity, which is led by Sarah [Wu]. There’s been some interesting research lately suggesting that, at a population level, people’s collaboration with AI can cause homogenization in ideas. We are studying how different mindsets can lead to different ways of people collaborating with AI for creative ideation. 

RT: Is this something that you hope to continue in a doctoral program in the future?

Yuewen: Oh absolutely, I definitely want to get a PhD.

RT: What do you think would be your core focus in a future PhD program? 

Yuewen: I want to still focus on Human-Computer Interaction broadly, but I’m not yet sure of exactly what I want to focus on, as that’s still evolving. But broadly, I’m interested in furthering the understanding of how AI influences our narratives in both intrapersonal and interpersonal context, and what we can learn from those insights to inform better interaction design.

RT: At a broader level, how do you think about impact in the work that you do? 

Yuewen: I want to design technologies that help people improve their well-being, but also design healthier interactions with existing technologies that at least don't negatively impact them. ChatGPT is a very interesting instance because we saw so much potential for it in talk therapy, but we also see these crazy risks of delusional thinking. How can such a mundane interaction design cause this Pandora's box? My goal is to navigate this path with both sides—the potential and the risks—very aware and salient to me and other designers.

RT: I love that. And when you’re not working, what do you tend to do for fun?

Yuewen: I’m an indoor person and a show watcher. Recently, I've been watching historical dramatizations. When I was younger, I was really into ancient Rome and Greece. But I use it for entertainment; not as any kind of study in any academic forums. I just consume the information and laugh. It’s a sort of escapism, I feel, consuming information that isn't immediately relevant to your life.