Understanding Mode Switching in Human-AI Collaboration: Behavioral Insights and Predictive Modeling
This addresses the problem of designing shared autonomy systems that need dynamic control switches aligned with user intent and task demands, though it is incremental as it builds on existing mode-switching concepts.
The study investigated how users dynamically switch between higher and lower levels of control in human-AI collaboration during a sequential decision-making task, using a chess setup to collect data and train a model that predicted control level switches with an F1 score of 0.65.
Human-AI collaboration is typically offered in one of two of user control levels: guidance, where the AI provides suggestions and the human makes the final decision, and delegation, where the AI acts autonomously within user-defined constraints. Systems that integrate both modes, common in robotic surgery or driving assistance, often overlook shifts in user preferences within a task in response to factors like evolving trust, decision complexity, and perceived control. In this work, we investigate how users dynamically switch between higher and lower levels of control during a sequential decision-making task. Using a hand-and-brain chess setup, participants either selected a piece and the AI decided how it moved (brain mode), or the AI selected a piece and the participant decided how it moved (hand mode). We collected over 400 mode-switching decisions from eight participants, along with gaze, emotional state, and subtask difficulty data. Statistical analysis revealed significant differences in gaze patterns and subtask complexity prior to a switch and in the quality of the subsequent move. Based on these results, we engineered behavioral and task-specific features to train a lightweight model that predicted control level switches ($F1 = 0.65$). The model performance suggests that real-time behavioral signals can serve as a complementary input alongside system-driven mode-switching mechanisms currently used. We complement our quantitative results with qualitative factors that influence switching including perceived AI ability, decision complexity, and level of control, identified from post-game interview analysis. The combined behavioral and modeling insights can help inform the design of shared autonomy systems that need dynamic, subtask-level control switches aligned with user intent and evolving task demands.