Where Do I 'Add the Egg'?: Exploring Agency and Ownership in AI Creative Co-Writing Systems

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Carrera, Dashiel, Thomas-Mitchell, Jeb, Wigdor, Daniel
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Carrera, Dashiel
Thomas-Mitchell, Jeb
Wigdor, Daniel
author_facet Carrera, Dashiel
Thomas-Mitchell, Jeb
Wigdor, Daniel
contents AI co-writing systems challenge long held ideals about agency and ownership in the creative process, thereby hindering widespread adoption. In order to address this, we investigate conceptions of agency and ownership in AI creative co-writing. Drawing on insights from a review of commercial systems, we developed three co-writing systems with identical functionality but distinct interface metaphors: agentic, tool-like, and magical. Through interviews with professional and non-professional writers (n = 18), we explored how these metaphors influenced participants' sense of control and authorship. Our analysis resulted in a taxonomy of agency and ownership subtypes and underscore how tool-like metaphors shift writers' expected points of control while agentic metaphors foreground conceptual contributions. We argue that interface metaphors not only guide expectations of control but also frame conceptions of authorship. We conclude with recommendations for the design of AI co-writing systems, emphasizing how metaphor shapes user experience and creative practice.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_15440
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Where Do I 'Add the Egg'?: Exploring Agency and Ownership in AI Creative Co-Writing Systems
Carrera, Dashiel
Thomas-Mitchell, Jeb
Wigdor, Daniel
Human-Computer Interaction
Artificial Intelligence
AI co-writing systems challenge long held ideals about agency and ownership in the creative process, thereby hindering widespread adoption. In order to address this, we investigate conceptions of agency and ownership in AI creative co-writing. Drawing on insights from a review of commercial systems, we developed three co-writing systems with identical functionality but distinct interface metaphors: agentic, tool-like, and magical. Through interviews with professional and non-professional writers (n = 18), we explored how these metaphors influenced participants' sense of control and authorship. Our analysis resulted in a taxonomy of agency and ownership subtypes and underscore how tool-like metaphors shift writers' expected points of control while agentic metaphors foreground conceptual contributions. We argue that interface metaphors not only guide expectations of control but also frame conceptions of authorship. We conclude with recommendations for the design of AI co-writing systems, emphasizing how metaphor shapes user experience and creative practice.
title Where Do I 'Add the Egg'?: Exploring Agency and Ownership in AI Creative Co-Writing Systems
topic Human-Computer Interaction
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.15440