Fendi Tsim, Alina Gutoreva, Anthony Weiss +1cs.HC cs.AI
Integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI), particularly generative AI, into medical training has prompted concerns about learner over-reliance, misuse, and erosion of foundational clinical competencies. We propose a conceptual reframing at the decision level: the problem is not misuse but misclassification - a mechanistic failure of real-time metacognitive evaluation in selecting a subzone-inappropriate AI interaction mode. Drawing on "SCAN" (Substitute, Complement, Aid, Non-Negotiable), a human-centric decision-making framework for generative AI task allocation grounded in Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development and metacognition, we advance the emerging social-constructivist conversation around AI in medical education by offering a testable account of AI's role in clinical reasoning development. This framework yields testable predictions for how misclassification can be detected, mitigated, and, more importantly, prevented in the clinical learning environment. Regarding clinical reasoning development, we show how trajectories of skill acquisition (upskilling) and failure (the triad of skill failure: de-skilling, never-skilling, and mis-skilling) operate at the individual task level in ways that fixed-phase, cohort-wide treatments fail to capture. We further identify passive engagement within correctly classified AI-scaffolded tasks as a particularly insidious, detection-resistant pathway to mis-skilling - one requiring subzone re-identification from AI assistance to expert assistance, with human experts serving as epistemic auditors. The paper operationalizes SCAN for clinical curriculum design, supervision, and assessment, and opens an empirical research agenda grounded in cognitive science. This paradigm shift from misuse to misclassification is not semantic: it offers educators a clear perspective on what to look for, what to assess, and what to intervene on.
Generative AI used as a capable servant has greatly accelerated intellectual work, but it also risks eroding human epistemic agency by encouraging uncritical acceptance of AI-generated reasoning. This creates a need for mechanisms that preserve human agency by augmenting metacognition during AI-assisted intellectual work. To address this, we propose the Synthesis-Analysis Reciprocity Model, which views intellectual construction as a reciprocal interaction between Synthesis, which combines components into an artifact, and Analysis, which critically evaluates them against objective indicators and constrains subsequent synthesis. Grounded in this model, we present the Vibe Compiler, a research-logic compiler that helps researchers transform vague ideas (Vibes) into coherent research logic. The system compiles these ideas using a research paper ontology of sixteen academic parameters. Compilation failures indicate missing logical components; rather than filling them autonomously, the system prompts researchers with reflective questions that encourage them to develop the missing reasoning. The framework characterizes structural gaps along two dimensions: cognitive function (Synthesis vs. Analysis) and executing agent (human vs. AI), yielding four origin types that identify where breakdowns arise. Our design emphasizes AI probing its own synthesized output to stimulate human metacognition, encouraging researchers to remain managers who critically direct and validate AI-generated reasoning rather than passive recipients. Experience with a prototype built on NotebookLM and Gemini suggests that effective AI-assisted reasoning depends less on sophisticated prompting than on the knowledge structure provided to the AI. This paper was developed using the proposed Vibe Compiler.