题　目： How Social AI Reshapes Human Interactions and Relationships

嘉　宾：Mengqing Zhang（张梦情）, Ph.D. Candidate，University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

主持人：韩雪雯，助理教授，上海交通大学安泰经济与管理学院

时　间：2026年12月9日（周三）10:00-11:30

地　点：上海交通大学安泰经济与管理学院包兆龙图书馆A305

内容简介:

AI systems are evolving from functional tools into social actors. This talk focuses on social AI: LLM-powered AI systems that engage with people in public settings such as social media. These systems may have their own identities and respond to users’ interaction requests, or act on behalf of human users to interact with others. As social AI increasingly participates in human interactions, it may reshape how people connect with both AI and one another. Social media platforms now deploy LLM-powered agents to help people manage relationships with their audiences, yet it remains unclear how this delegation affects user engagement. In this talk, I examine how such social AI agents shape user engagement. By showing how social AI generates socializing value, my research advances our understanding of AI

演讲人简介：

Maggie Zhang is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Information Systems at the McIntire School of Commerce, University of Virginia. She received her Ph.D. in Communication and a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She also holds an M.Phil. from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and a B.A. from Tsinghua University.

Her research examines how emerging technologies shape individual behavior, with a particular focus on how social AI influences human interactions and relationships. Drawing on large-scale observational data, econometric methods, and experiments, her research offers empirical insights to inform the effective implementation of emerging technologies.