Why “human‐ AI collaboration” obscures what actually happens in information seeking

Chirag Shah & Lynda Tamine

Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST)2026https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.70059article
AJG 3
Weight
0.50

What the paper says

The rhetoric of “human‐AI collaboration” frames contemporary discussions of interacting with artificial intelligence systems. Drawing from 15 years of research in collaborative information seeking, we argue that this metaphor fundamentally misrepresents these interactions and obscures critical issues of agency, accountability, and labor. Real collaboration—whether mediated by algorithms or not—requires mutual understanding, shared goals, reciprocal adaptation, and common ground building. Current AI systems meet none of these criteria. Here we examine what genuine collaboration entails, why the AI industry's appropriation of this language matters, and what we lose when we mistake sophisticated autocomplete for partnership.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.70059

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@article{chirag2026,
  title        = {{Why “human‐ AI collaboration” obscures what actually happens in information seeking}},
  author       = {Chirag Shah & Lynda Tamine},
  journal      = {Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST)},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.70059},
}

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Why “human‐ AI collaboration” obscures what actually happens in information seeking

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Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.