💼 I'll also be going on the 2026–27 job market for 𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗿 positions and 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘆 𝗿𝗼𝗹𝗲𝘀 where I can continue my research in human-centered {AI, privacy, security}. If you've just come off the market or would be willing to share advice, I'd love to connect at CHI!
We'll also be presenting our workshop paper, "Promoting Critical Thinking With Domain-Specific Generative AI Provocations," at the Workshop on Tools for Thought on Thu, Apr 16 | 2:15–6:00 PM | P1 - Room 122.
arxiv.org/abs/2603.19975
First is our full paper, "Privy: Envisioning and Mitigating Privacy Risks for Consumer-facing AI Product Concepts" (Honorable Mention Award 🎖️) in Steering and Evaluating Generative AI on Fri, Apr 17 | 9:00–10:30 AM | P1 - Room 117.
arxiv.org/abs/2509.23525
Excited to be in Barcelona 🇪🇸 next week for #CHI2026 and share one full paper and one workshop paper on privacy, GenAI, and critical thinking.
This line of work includes:
Privy (CHI ’26 Honorable Mention Award):
hankhplee.com/papers/privy...
AI Privacy Taxonomy (CHI ’24 Best Paper Award):
hankhplee.com/papers/chi24...
AI Practitioners’ Privacy Work Interviews (USENIX Security ’24 Distinguished Paper Award):
hankhplee.com/papers/sec24...
Really excited that “Privy” received a CHI ’26 Honorable Mention Award 🏅
Privy is part of my PhD work on AI privacy: understanding AI privacy risks, studying why they’re hard to address in practice, and building tools that help product teams act on them.
Can LLMs really serve as "crash dummies" for security & privacy testing? We put this assumption to the test.
🚨New preprint 🚨: "How Well Can LLM Agents Simulate End-User Security and Privacy Attitudes and Behaviors?"
👇 THREAD 👇
[Link to paper: arxiv.org/abs/2602.184...
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Excited and grateful to share that I’ve been named a Presidential Fellow by @cylab.bsky.social !
Endless thanks to my advisors @sauvik.me and Jodi Forlizzi, and all my collaborators for their constant inspiration as we work toward shaping the future of privacy-preserving AI.
Congrats to my student @hankhplee.bsky.social for being recognized as one of the 2025 CyLab Presidential fellows!
cylab.cmu.edu/news/2025/1...
@cylab.bsky.social wrote a great article on @hankhplee.bsky.social's #chi2025 paper on Purpose Mode.
He presented it today and did a great job!
PurposeMode reduces distraction on social media from 28% -> 7%. You can use it, too! It's open source :)
cylab.cmu.edu/news/2025/04...
Tomorrow (Wed), I will be presenting our @acmtochi.bsky.social paper "Purpose Mode: Reducing Distraction through Toggling Attention Capture Damaging Patterns on Social Media Web Sites" at:
- Wed, 30 Apr | 11:22 AM - 11:34 AM | Room G301
- Session link: programs.sigchi.org/chi/2025/my-...
Tomorrow (Mon), I will be presenting our #CHI2025 paper "The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking" at:
- Mon, 28 Apr | 4:44 PM | Room G314 + G315
- Session link: programs.sigchi.org/chi/2025/pro...
(Reposts appreciated!)
Do you work on user-facing Artificial Intelligence (AI) products? We would like to hear from you!
Please fill out this survey to sign up for the study: cmu.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
@yuxuanli1225.bsky.social has been producing great work since day one of his PhD. Can’t wait to see where his brilliant work leads next!
This work is done during my internship @msftresearch.bsky.social. Huge thanks to my incredible mentors and collaborators: @advaitsarkar.bsky.social @levlevlev.bsky.social Ian, Sean, Richard, and Nick!
We can boost motivation by positioning critical reflection as professional growth—not just extra auditing. Strengthen ability with AI reasoning explanations, guided critiques, and cross-references. Think of GenAI as a provocateur—encouraging workers to refine outputs confidently.
Our findings show GenAI tools should enhance motivators (like quality standards, skill-building) and mitigate inhibitors (time constraints, low awareness) to preserve critical thinking, e.g., proactive prompts can spotlight overlooked tasks, while reactive features offer on-demand assistance.
We observed a shift from “execution” to “stewardship.” GenAI automates tasks like info-gathering or content creation, but workers now invest effort in verification, editing, and alignment with project needs. This pattern emerges widely across different roles and tasks.
GenAI often lowers perceived effort for critical thinking—especially when users trust its capabilities. Interestingly, those confident in their own expertise tend to dig deeper, spending extra time verifying and refining AI outputs.
Their reports are in line with the longstanding balancing of effort at work. In high-stakes tasks requiring high accuracy, they report engaging in more perceived effort, including thinking critically. In low-stakes routine tasks with high time pressure, they report engaging in less perceived effort
Knowledge workers rely on critical thinking with GenAI to maintain work quality. They define it as setting clear goals, refining prompts, and verifying outputs against external sources and their own expertise. They’re driven by the need to avoid errors, improve work quality, and hone skills.
We surveyed 319 knowledge workers from diverse fields, collecting 936 real-world GenAI-assisted tasks. We asked: When is critical thinking necessary? How do they enact it? Does GenAI affect the effort of critical thinking—and how much?
We found that…
We ground our discussion using Bloom’s Taxonomy, focusing on knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. In a GenAI-driven workflow, each of these cognitive activities faces new challenges—and opportunities—for deeper critical engagement.
GenAI is everywhere in the knowledge workflow—from drafting emails to sparking new ideas. But as usage soars, how do we balance its benefits with mindful, reflective work? To design GenAI for better critical thinking, we must first understand how it is currently affecting knowledge work.
How does using GenAI tools reshape knowledge workers’ critical thinking? Our #CHI2025 paper studied 319 knowledge workers to dive into this question. w/@advaitsarkar.bsky.social @levlevlev.bsky.social Ian, Sean, Richard, Nick @msftresearch.bsky.social @hcii.cmu.edu
www.microsoft.com/en-us/resear...
Not at all Ketan! I really appreciated your thoughtful comments on the paper! This is also an amazing opportunity for me to really understand how people feel about our work. I am truly humbled and appreciated!
I'm absolutely thrilled to see my recent CHI paper go viral! I’m humbled by all the support and grateful for the thoughtful critiques.
Critical thinking in the Generative AI era is more important than ever — stay tuned for more insights soon!
Massive thanks to my advisor @sauvik.me, my brave.com internship mentor Philipp, and my amazing collaborators Yi-Shyuan, Lan, and Stephanie! We’re on a mission to challenge the trillion-dollar attention economy — one toggle at a time!
Purpose Mode helps you remove cluttered layouts, notifications, infinite scroll, color saturation, and autoplay. It’s fully open-sourced on GitHub — give it a shot and reclaim your attention:
github.com/hankhplee/pu...
🎥 youtu.be/AWY8HQ_z_-c?...
So what is the bottom line here? Removing these subtle yet powerful design traps through tools like Purpose Mode drastically lowers perceived distraction. It puts you back in control — and makes your social media browsing more purposeful.