AI and My Values: User Perceptions of LLMs' Ability to Extract, Embody, and Explain Human Values from Casual Conversations

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Yun, Bhada, Su, Renn, Wang, April Yi
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Yun, Bhada
Su, Renn
Wang, April Yi
author_facet Yun, Bhada
Su, Renn
Wang, April Yi
contents Does AI understand human values? While this remains an open philosophical question, we take a pragmatic stance by introducing VAPT, the Value-Alignment Perception Toolkit, for studying how LLMs reflect people's values and how people judge those reflections. 20 participants texted a chatbot over a month, then completed a 2-hour interview with our toolkit evaluating AI's ability to extract (pull details regarding), embody (make decisions guided by), and explain (provide proof of) their values. 13 participants ultimately left our study convinced that AI can understand human values. Thus, we warn about "weaponized empathy": a design pattern that may arise in interactions with value-aware, yet welfare-misaligned conversational agents. VAPT offers a new way to evaluate value-alignment in AI systems. We also offer design implications to evaluate and responsibly build AI systems with transparency and safeguards as AI capabilities grow more inscrutable, ubiquitous, and posthuman into the future.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_22440
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle AI and My Values: User Perceptions of LLMs' Ability to Extract, Embody, and Explain Human Values from Casual Conversations
Yun, Bhada
Su, Renn
Wang, April Yi
Human-Computer Interaction
Artificial Intelligence
Computation and Language
H.5.2; I.2.0; I.2.1; I.2.7; K.4.1
Does AI understand human values? While this remains an open philosophical question, we take a pragmatic stance by introducing VAPT, the Value-Alignment Perception Toolkit, for studying how LLMs reflect people's values and how people judge those reflections. 20 participants texted a chatbot over a month, then completed a 2-hour interview with our toolkit evaluating AI's ability to extract (pull details regarding), embody (make decisions guided by), and explain (provide proof of) their values. 13 participants ultimately left our study convinced that AI can understand human values. Thus, we warn about "weaponized empathy": a design pattern that may arise in interactions with value-aware, yet welfare-misaligned conversational agents. VAPT offers a new way to evaluate value-alignment in AI systems. We also offer design implications to evaluate and responsibly build AI systems with transparency and safeguards as AI capabilities grow more inscrutable, ubiquitous, and posthuman into the future.
title AI and My Values: User Perceptions of LLMs' Ability to Extract, Embody, and Explain Human Values from Casual Conversations
topic Human-Computer Interaction
Artificial Intelligence
Computation and Language
H.5.2; I.2.0; I.2.1; I.2.7; K.4.1
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.22440