IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications  •  2025

Click to read abstract

Autonomous agents powered by Large Language Models are transforming AI, creating an imperative for the visualization area. However, our field's focus on a human in the sensemaking loop raises critical questions about autonomy, delegation, and coordination for such agentic visualization that preserve human agency while amplifying analytical capabilities. This paper addresses these questions by reinterpreting existing visualization systems with semi-automated or fully automatic AI components through an agentic lens. Based on this analysis, we extract a collection of design patterns for agentic visualization, including agentic roles, communication, and coordination. These patterns provide a foundation for future agentic visualization systems that effectively harness AI agents while maintaining human insight and control.

2025

Click to read abstract

AI's transformative impact on work, education, and everyday life makes it as much a political artifact as a technological one. Current AI models are opaque, centralized, and overly generic. The algorithmic automation they provide threatens human agency and democratic values in both workplaces and daily life. To confront such challenges, we turn to Scandinavian Participatory Design (PD), which was devised in the 1970s to face a similar threat from mechanical automation. In the PD tradition, technology is seen not just as an artifact, but as a locus of democracy. Drawing from this tradition, we propose Participatory AI as a PD approach to human-centered AI that applies five PD principles to four design challenges for algorithmic automation. We use concrete case studies to illustrate how to treat AI models less as proprietary products and more as shared socio-technical systems that enhance rather than diminish human agency, human dignity, and human values.