Structuring Human-AI Productive Interdependence by Strategic Level of Automation Selection for Qualitative Inquiry
For qualitative researchers, this work addresses the tension between AI automation and interpretive analysis by providing a principled way to structure human-AI collaboration.
The paper reframes human-AI collaboration in qualitative analysis as an interdependence problem, proposing a framework for selecting the appropriate Level of Automation based on task risk and validation cost. A case study demonstrates that this approach fosters calibrated trust and rigorous analysis.
While Large Language Models (LLMs) offer a solution to the scale-versus-depth dilemma in qualitative analysis, the paradigm of maximizing automation is fundamentally at odds with the interpretive nature of qualitative inquiry. We argue that effective Human-AI collaboration is not an automation problem, but an interdependence problem. This paper reframes the design of "co-data" systems through the lens of Interdependence Theory, proposing a formal framework to structure human-AI productive interdependence. The framework guides the selection of an appropriate Level of Automation (LoA) for different stages of the qualitative analysis process by assessing task risk and the cost of validation. We present a case study where this framework led to a deliberately interdependent workflow, fostering the calibrated trust necessary for rigorous analysis. We conclude by presenting three design principles that instantiate this framework, demonstrating how to leverage AI as a powerful partner while preserving the human researcher's irreplaceable role in the transformation process of meaning-making.