HILA LIFSHITZ

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies promise to transform how professionals conduct knowledge work by augmenting their capabilities for making professional judgment. We know little, however, about how human-AI augmentation takes place in practice. Yet gaining this understanding is particularly important when professionals use AI tools to form judgments on critical decisions. We conducted an in-depth field study in a major US hospital where AI tools were used in three departments by diagnostic radiologists making breast cancer, lung cancer, and bone age determinations. The study illustrates the hindering effects of opacity that professionals experienced when using AI tools and explores how these professionals grappled with it in practice. In all three departments, this opacity resulted in professionals experiencing increased uncertainty because AI tool results often diverged from their initial judgment without providing underlying reasoning. Only in one department (of the three),..