RELIC / EXPLORATORY HCI EXTENSION

Human–Agent
Organization.

How do you participate in an organization that is already working?

The RELIC appendix compares direct participation (P1), transparent liaison (P2), and liaison-first interaction (P3). Each design brings human intent into a running organization without turning the human—or their secretary—into its global manager.

Explore the architecture RELIC research

01 / FROM ACCESS TO UNDERSTANDING

Access alone is not an interface.

Autonomous organizations expose workstreams, review histories, approvals, and machine-native events. The design progression asks how a person can understand and participate without continually reconstructing that state.

DESIGN ITERATION / P3

Start with meaning. Open the evidence.

A secretary presents relevant updates, explicit decision requests, and explanations on demand. Goals travel back into structured work, while the autonomous organization continues independently.

What changes is the exposure of complexity—not authority over other members.

RELIC appendix compares direct human participation with secretary assistance: both leave organizational complexity exposed to the human. — Original appendix figure: the P1 / P2 design motivation. The formal comparative study is not reported as completed on this page. Click to inspect the original.

02 / THREE COEXISTING PARTS

A human office, inside a shared world.

Autonomous organization

An independently running organization with its own members, roles, shared state, and ongoing work—not merely a set of agents spawned for the human.

Human work unit

A human, their secretary, and delegated execution agents. The secretary coordinates the human’s work and explains relevant organizational state.

Common workflow

Human-owned deliverables return to the same review, tests, and protocol checks as work from autonomous members.

FROM THE PAPER / Appendix figure · illustrative workflow

P3: a hybrid human–agent organization

RELIC HCI appendix figure: a liaison-first human interface, an independently running organization, a human office with delegated agents, and shared review and governance. — Original figure from the RELIC HCI appendix. The secretary coordinates human-owned work, not the whole organization. Human-owned deliverables pass through the same review and governance as other members’ work.

03 / A TWO-WAY INTERACTION BOUNDARY

Translation in both directions.

ORGANIZATION → HUMAN

Make the right context legible.

Relevant activity becomes a readable update.
Unresolved choices become explicit decision requests.
On-demand explanations retain paths back to evidence.

Routine status and urgent decisions need different attention patterns.

HUMAN → ORGANIZATION

Turn intent into accountable work.

Goals become tasks and acceptance criteria.
Concerns become review requests or constraints.
Proposed protocol changes still require governance.

Ambiguous intent calls for clarification, not an automatic override.

Responsiveness ≠ authority. The secretary does not acquire authority over the entire organization. It cannot reassign unrelated work, bypass approvals, or exempt human-owned artifacts from shared checks.

INTERFACE STUDY / ILLUSTRATIVE, NOT A LIVE SYSTEM

One request. Three levels of detail.

A batch-export request illustrates progressive disclosure. These example states explain the interface design; they are not execution logs or user-study findings.

Secretary / Human work unitIllustrative example

A QUESTION FOR YOU

What should count as a complete batch export?

The human-owned work needs an acceptance criterion before implementation. The secretary brings the decision into view with its context.

Why your judgment is needed

The work unit needs you to specify the output format and what should happen if one item fails. The liaison can explain the tradeoff; it does not silently decide on your behalf.

Waiting for clarification · no change has been executed

Human intentStructured task + acceptance criteria Shared review, tests & protocol checks

04 / RESEARCH STATUS

A design exploration, with open questions.

This is an exploratory extension of RELIC, grounded in the appendix’s interface designs and illustrative workflows. It is not presented as a separately validated HCI system or a completed comparative user study.

Source basis: RELIC: From Multi-Agent Collaboration to Organizational Capability, exploratory HCI appendix. This page follows its three interface levels, human office architecture, and bidirectional translation design—not a separate HCI paper.
Available here: P1 / P2 / P3 design rationale, organization–human architecture, interaction boundaries, and a conceptual interface walkthrough.
Still to investigate: Comprehension, attention routing, ambiguity resolution, and how people distinguish an expressed intention from an accepted organizational action.
Evidence boundary: No participant counts, measured usability gains, or comparative study outcomes are asserted. Original figures and the interactive example are labeled separately.

Return to the organizational question

FURTHER THOUGHTS

Beyond the paper.

Human–Agent OrganizationCONCEPT / RESEARCH SYSTEM

Human office · liaison · common governance

Three levels of human–organization interaction.

Direct participation, a transparent liaison, and liaison-first interaction: the P1–P3 design progression in the RELIC appendix.

Research note · 4 min read