Making Sense of Research on How People Use AI

As generative AI plays an increasingly prominent role in our lives—at work as well as at home—we’d all do well to develop our own nuanced viewpoints about the technology. Over the past three years in particular, it’s become far too big to ignore. A useful way to think about this new phenomenon is to separate the rapid changes in the technology itself from the ensuing changes in human behavior as we use generative AI in our daily lives. On the technology side, there’s lots to keep track of: latest model releases, benchmark performance records, breathtaking funding announcements, training data sources, new features, and much more. On the human side, it’s about understanding how people are actually using the new technology, and why. My work is focused on the latter—our responses and adaptations to AI—the anthropological side of the story.