Position: Human-Centric AI Requires a Minimum Viable Level of Human Understanding

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2602.00854v1
• Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2026 18:37:33 GMT
• Title: Position: Human-Centric AI Requires a Minimum Viable Level of Human Understanding
• Authors: Fangzhou Lin, Qianwen Ge, Lingyu Xu, Peiran Li, Xiangbo Gao, Shuo Xing, Kazunori Yamada, Ziming Zhang, Haichong Zhang, Zhengzhong Tu,
• Abstract summary: This paper argues that prevailing approaches to transparency, user control, literacy, and governance do not define the foundational understanding humans must retain for oversight under sustained AI delegation.<n>To formalize this, we define the Cognitive Integrity Threshold (CIT) as the minimum comprehension required to preserve oversight, autonomy, and accountable participation under AI assistance.
• Score: 26.14684888478043
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
• Abstract: AI systems increasingly produce fluent, correct, end-to-end outcomes. Over time, this erodes users' ability to explain, verify, or intervene. We define this divergence as the Capability-Comprehension Gap: a decoupling where assisted performance improves while users' internal models deteriorate. This paper argues that prevailing approaches to transparency, user control, literacy, and governance do not define the foundational understanding humans must retain for oversight under sustained AI delegation. To formalize this, we define the Cognitive Integrity Threshold (CIT) as the minimum comprehension required to preserve oversight, autonomy, and accountable participation under AI assistance. CIT does not require full reasoning reconstruction, nor does it constrain automation. It identifies the threshold beyond which oversight becomes procedural and contestability fails. We operatinalize CIT through three functional dimensions: (i) verification capacity, (ii) comprehension-preserving interaction, and (iii) institutional scaffolds for governance. This motivates a design and governance agenda that aligns human-AI interaction with cognitive sustainability in responsibility-critical settings.

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