Interactive AI and Human Behavior: Challenges and Pathways for AI Governance

As Generative AI systems increasingly engage in long-term, personal, and relational interactions, human-AI engagements are becoming significantly complex, making them more challenging to understand and govern. These Interactive AI systems adapt to users over time, build ongoing relationships, and even can take proactive actions on behalf of users. This new paradigm requires us to rethink how such human-AI interactions can be studied effectively to inform governance and policy development. In this paper, we draw on insights from a collaborative interdisciplinary workshop with policymakers, behavioral scientists, Human-Computer Interaction researchers, and civil society practitioners, to identify challenges and methodological opportunities arising within new forms of human-AI interactions. Based on these insights, we discuss an outcome-focused regulatory approach that integrates behavioral insights to address both the risks and benefits of emerging human-AI relationships. In particular, we emphasize the need for new methods to study the fluid, dynamic, and context-dependent nature of these interactions. We provide practical recommendations for developing human-centric AI governance, informed by behavioral insights, that can respond to the complexities of Interactive AI systems.