Publications

List of papers, preprints, conference presentations, and workshop contributions.

2026

  1. Safety Theater in Anthropomorphic AI: Why We Need to Shift from Safety to Accountability Narratives
    Takuya Maeda, Rebecca Buening.
    FAccT 2026
    [PDF] ·
  2. Ethics in Computational Communication Research: The 3Cs Framework of Conceptualization, Contextualization, and Consideration
    Takuya Maeda, Kesiena Fofah, Charlotte Nau, Anabel Quan-Haase.
    ICA Handbook of Computational Communication Research, 2026
    [PDF soon]

2025

  1. Anthropomorphism as Social Affordance: Charting the Co-Animation of Chatbots into Social “Agents”
    Takuya Maeda, Luke Stark.
    AIES 2025
    [PDF] ·
  2. Toward agency-centered AI literacy: A scoping review.
    Takuya Maeda, Hillary Anderson, Anabel Quan-Haase, Katharine Willis, and Selena Gignac.
    ASIS&T 2025
    [PDF] ·
  3. Walkthrough of Anthropomorphic Features in AI Assistant Tools Takuya Maeda
    Arxiv preprint, 2025
    [PDF]

    4. 2024

  4. Misplaced Capabilities: Evaluating the Risks of Anthropomorphism in Human-AI Interactions
    Takuya Maeda
    AIES 2024
    [PDF] ·
  5. When Human-AI Interactions Become Parasocial: Agency and Anthropomorphism in Affective Design
    Takuya Maeda, Anabel Quan-Haase.
    FAccT 2024
    [PDF]

    6. 2022

  6. Between Fact and Fabrication: How Visual Art Might Nurture Environmental Consciousness
    Rebecca Buening, Takuya Maeda, Kongmeng Liew, Eiji Aramaki
    FAccT 2024
    [PDF]

Conferences and Panels

    2026

  1. Humanlikeness as Engagement Capture
    Takuya Maeda, Rebecca Buening.
    4S 2026, Toronto
  2. The Agency and Politics of LLM-Based Chatbots.
    Takuya Maeda., Luke Stark.
    4S 2026, Toronto
  3. Designed to Feel Like Someone: Anthropomorphism, Parasociality, and the Limits of Safety Narratives.
    Takuya Maeda.
    D3 Center, Osaka University, 2026
  4. Agency and AI Sytems.
    Takuya Maeda.
    What the Antelope Knows Workshop. London, Ontario, June 10-13, 2026 [Roundtable]
  5. The Multiple Contextual Violations of LLM Chatbots.
    Takuya Maeda.
    PrivaCI Symposium, 2026

2025

  1. From imitation to intimacy: How AI companions commodify emotional labor.
    Takuya Maeda.
    Digital Intimacies 11 The Love of Machines, University of Sydney, 2025
  2. Beyond the Eliza Effect: How AI Systems Are Animated into Interaction Harms.
    Takuya Maeda.
    GIRAF Showcase. Rotman Institute of Philosophy, Western University, 2025
  3. AI, Intimacy, and Influence: Youth, Parasocial Relationships, and the AI Age.
    Takuya Maeda., Quan-Haase, A., Zhang, Y., & Campos-Castillo, C.
    MediaSmarts, 2025 [Panel/Roundtable]
  4. Human enough: How the Eliza effect became a design strategy.
    Takuya Maeda., Luke Stark.
    SIGCIS, 2025
  5. Conceptualizing Interaction Harms in LLM Systems.
    Takuya Maeda.
    4S Seattle, 2025
  6. Nonhumaness and Non-materiality of Synthetic Agents.
    Takuya Maeda.
    The Workshop of “Synthetic Data: Representation and/vs Representativeness.” In the Sixth Decennial Aarhus Conference, 2025 [Workshop]
  7. AI Literacy, Inequality and Ethics: Anthropomorphism and Parasociality in Affective Design.
    Quan-Haase, A., Takuya Maeda.
    CITAMS Media Sociology Symposium, ASA Preconference, 2025 [Keynote]
  8. When Human-AI Interactions Become Parasocial: Agency and Anthropomorphism in Affective Design.
    Takuya Maeda.
    Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication (SIMC), University of Symbiosis, Pune, India, 2025 [Invited Talk]
  9. Anthropomorphic AI as a Distributed Process: The Co-Animation of LLM “Agents”
    Takuya Maeda.
    Research Retreat on Human-Al Relationships, Rotman Institute of Philosophy, Western University, 2025

2024

  1. Experiences Researching AI Literacy
    Takuya Maeda., Anderson, H., Quan-Haase, A., Li, M., & Zajko, M.
    MediaSmarts Media Literacy Week, 2024 [Panel/Roundtable]