Generative AI, with its tendency to "hallucinate" incorrect results, may pose a risk to knowledge work by introducing errors. On the other hand, it may also provide unprecedented opportunities for users, particularly non-experts, to learn and apply advanced software features and greatly increase the scope and complexity of tasks they can successfully achieve. As an example of a complex knowledge workflow that is subject to risks and opportunities from generative AI, we consider the spreadsheet. AI hallucinations are an important challenge, but they are not the greatest risk posed by generative AI to spreadsheet workflows. Rather, as more work can be safely delegated to AI, the risk is that human critical thinking -- the ability to holistically and rigorously evaluate a problem and its solutions -- is degraded in the process. The solution is to design the interfaces of generative AI systems deliberately to foster and encourage critical thinking in knowledge work, building primarily on a long history of research on critical thinking tools for education. We discuss a prototype system for the activity of critical shortlisting in spreadsheets. The system uses generative AI to suggest shortlisting criteria and applies these criteria to sort rows in a spreadsheet. It also generates "provocations": short text snippets that critique the AI-generated criteria, highlighting risks, shortcomings, and alternatives. Our prototype opens up a rich and completely unexplored design space of critical thinking tools for modern AI-assisted knowledge work. We outline a research agenda for AI as a critic or provocateur, including questions about where and when provocations should appear, their form and content, and potential design trade-offs.

翻译：生成式AI倾向于“幻觉”出错误结果，可能通过引入错误对知识工作构成风险。另一方面，它也可能为用户（特别是非专家）提供前所未有的机会，使其能够学习并应用高级软件功能，并极大地扩展其能够成功完成的任务范围和复杂性。我们以电子表格为例，探讨一个受生成式AI风险与机遇影响的复杂知识工作流程。AI幻觉是一项重要挑战，但并非生成式AI对电子表格工作流程构成的最大风险。相反，随着更多工作可以安全地委托给AI，风险在于人类批判性思维——即全面而严谨地评估问题及其解决方案的能力——在此过程中被削弱。解决方案在于有意识地设计生成式AI系统的界面，以促进和鼓励知识工作中的批判性思维，主要建立在教育领域批判性思维工具的长期研究基础上。我们讨论了一个用于电子表格中关键筛选活动的原型系统。该系统利用生成式AI建议筛选标准，并应用这些标准对电子表格中的行进行排序。同时，它生成“激发性提示”：简短的文本片段，用于批判AI生成的标准，突出风险、缺陷和替代方案。我们的原型为现代AI辅助知识工作中的批判性思维工具开辟了一个丰富且完全未被探索的设计空间。我们概述了将AI作为批评者或激发者的研究议程，包括激发性提示应在何时何地出现、其形式与内容以及潜在的设计权衡等问题。