Amy X. Zhang is an Associate Professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington, where she heads the Social Futures Lab. Her work is in human-computer interaction (HCI) and social computing.
Background
Zhang's research covers the design of online communities, discussion and deliberation systems, and tools for assessing information credibility and countering misinformation, drawing on the design of offline public institutions (Source: https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~axz/). She received a Sloan Research Fellowship in 2025.
Research and publications
Zhang is a co-author, with Kevin Feng (whom she advises) and David W. McDonald, of Levels of Autonomy for AI Agents (Knight Columbia, July 2025), republished in the May 2026 Knight Columbia AI-in-Democratic-Society symposium (Levels of Autonomy for AI Agents (Feng + McDonald + Zhang, Knight Columbia, 2026); see Levels of Autonomy for AI Agents (Feng-McDonald-Zhang framework)).
The essay treats autonomy as a deliberate, user-centered design decision separable from raw capability, and operationalizes it through five user-role levels: operator, collaborator, consultant, approver, and observer. It reasons about AI agents from the standpoint of the human (or AI) user who issues a request and the role that user takes in supervising the work, rather than from model capability alone. Zhang's social-computing orientation supplies the framework's grounding in how people actually interact with, oversee, and delegate to automated systems.
Page created 2026-05-25 by the gap-identifier (gap type 3 — co-author of a tracked foundational source, referenced from Levels of Autonomy for AI Agents (Feng-McDonald-Zhang framework) and Kevin Feng with no entity page). Confidence medium.
Relationships
- affiliated-with: University of Washington (Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering); Social Futures Lab (head)
- advises: Kevin Feng
- co-author-with: Kevin Feng, David W. McDonald
- author-of: Levels of Autonomy for AI Agents (Feng + McDonald + Zhang, Knight Columbia, 2026)
- supports: Levels of Autonomy for AI Agents (Feng-McDonald-Zhang framework)
- related: Agentic AI
Sources
- Levels of Autonomy for AI Agents (Feng + McDonald + Zhang, Knight Columbia, 2026) — Feng, McDonald & Zhang, Levels of Autonomy for AI Agents, Knight Columbia, 2025.
- (Source: https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~axz/) — Zhang's academic homepage (affiliation, lab, research focus).