Before the Technological Fix: Scoping AI and AAC for Social Futures

TY - GEN

T1 - Before the Technological Fix

T2 - 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

AU - Ibrahim, Seray B

AU - Griffiths, Tom

AU - Clarke, Michael T.

AU - Judge, Simon

AU - Slovak, Petr

AU - Pullin, Graham

AU - Higginbotham, Jeff

N1 - Copyright © 2026 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License.

PY - 2026/4/13

Y1 - 2026/4/13

N2 - Growing HCI interest in applying AI to Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) technologies is timely and encouraging. However, this work would benefit from closer alignment with contemporary AAC research. Recent HCI contributions have prioritised linguistic efficiency and technological capability, often reflecting sender-receiver communication models rather than the collaborative, multimodal, and contextually distributed approaches emphasised in AAC scholarship. We argue that HCI research could be strengthened by adopting broader conceptual models that better account for social interaction. This work-in-progress reports initial findings from a 20-year scoping review of ACM and Scopus literature examining how AI has been framed in AAC design. Most papers (43/65) positioned problems as connected with technological factors, whilst some addressed bodily factors (19/65), and fewer addressed temporal-relational factors in conversation (11/65). We see valuable opportunities for the CHI community to prioritise social interaction and participation alongside technological innovation in future AAC and AI research.

AB - Growing HCI interest in applying AI to Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) technologies is timely and encouraging. However, this work would benefit from closer alignment with contemporary AAC research. Recent HCI contributions have prioritised linguistic efficiency and technological capability, often reflecting sender-receiver communication models rather than the collaborative, multimodal, and contextually distributed approaches emphasised in AAC scholarship. We argue that HCI research could be strengthened by adopting broader conceptual models that better account for social interaction. This work-in-progress reports initial findings from a 20-year scoping review of ACM and Scopus literature examining how AI has been framed in AAC design. Most papers (43/65) positioned problems as connected with technological factors, whilst some addressed bodily factors (19/65), and fewer addressed temporal-relational factors in conversation (11/65). We see valuable opportunities for the CHI community to prioritise social interaction and participation alongside technological innovation in future AAC and AI research.

KW - human centred computing

KW - Accessibility

KW - Scoping review

KW - Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC)

KW - Artificial Intelligence (AI)

KW - Communication

KW - Social interaction

KW - AAC

KW - AI

KW - social interaction

KW - communication

U2 - 10.1145/3772363.3798436

DO - 10.1145/3772363.3798436

M3 - Conference contribution

T3 - Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings

SP - 1

EP - 10

BT - CHI 2026 - Extended Abtracts of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

A2 - Oliver, Nuria

A2 - Shamma, David A.

A2 - Candello, Heloisa

A2 - Cesar, Pablo

A2 - Lopes, Pedro

A2 - Artizzu, Valentino

A2 - Draxler, Fiona

A2 - López, Gustavo

A2 - Reinschluessel, Anke V.

A2 - Tong, Xin

A2 - Toups Dugas, Phoebe O.

PB - Association for Computing Machinery

CY - New York

Y2 - 13 April 2026 through 17 April 2026

ER -