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This paper explores the phenomenon of contribution dissolution in agent-mediated collaboration, where LLM agents blur the lines of attribution, originality, and accountability in collaborative knowledge work. The authors argue that this issue arises from individual uncertainties about ownership and propagates through collaborative dynamics, undermining the reliability of intellectual exchanges. Through workshops and collaborative exercises, they aim to establish a research agenda and infrastructural solutions to address these challenges in accountability and documentation practices.
The rise of LLM agents threatens to erase the clarity of authorship and accountability in collaborative knowledge work, raising urgent questions about intellectual integrity.
Collaborative knowledge work is changing in ways that go beyond disclosure or transparency. LLM agents are now embedded in how teams research, design, write, and decide: mediating between members, synthesizing inputs, reformulating ideas, and drafting shared outputs. They do not only facilitate collaboration; they operate within the workflow at the moment contributions are being formed. In doing so, they risk undermining the social conditions under which contributions can be witnessed, attributed, and held accountable. This workshop brings together researchers and practitioners to confront what we call contribution dissolution: the blurring of attribution, originality, and accountability in agent-mediated collaborative work. We argue that this dissolution begins before collaboration itself, in the individual worker's own uncertainty about what is genuinely theirs, and propagates through collaborative relationships, collapsing the reliability that makes productive intellectual exchange possible. Through position statements, mapping exercises, and a hands-on activity, participants will surface how framing accountability as a documentation problem (e.g., AI use statements, watermarking, provenance logs) overlooks the conditions under which accountability is produced. Our goal is to produce a shared research agenda and the foundations of an infrastructural response to contribution dissolution in collaborative knowledge work.
Microsoft Research
NVIDIA