Logo
ScienceStack
Table of Contents
Fetching ...
Sign In

"Don't Look, But I Know You Do": Norms and Observer Effects in Shared LLM Accounts

Ji Eun Song, Eunchae Lee, Juhee Im, Hyunsoo Jang, Eunji Kim, Joongseek Lee

Abstract

Account sharing is common in subscription services and is now extending to generative AI platforms, which are still primarily designed for individual use. Sharing often requires workarounds that create new tensions. This study examines how LLM subscriptions are shared and the norms that develop. We combined a survey of 245 users with interviews of 36 participants to understand both patterns and lived experiences. Our analysis identified four types of account sharing, organized along two dimensions: whether the owner uses the account and whether subscription costs are shared. Within these types, we examined how norms were formed and how their fragility, especially privacy, became evident in practice. Users, fully aware of this, subtly adjusted their behavior, which we interpret through the lens of the observer effect. We frame LLM account sharing as a social practice of appropriation and outline design implications to adapt single-user platforms to multi-user realities.

"Don't Look, But I Know You Do": Norms and Observer Effects in Shared LLM Accounts

Abstract

Account sharing is common in subscription services and is now extending to generative AI platforms, which are still primarily designed for individual use. Sharing often requires workarounds that create new tensions. This study examines how LLM subscriptions are shared and the norms that develop. We combined a survey of 245 users with interviews of 36 participants to understand both patterns and lived experiences. Our analysis identified four types of account sharing, organized along two dimensions: whether the owner uses the account and whether subscription costs are shared. Within these types, we examined how norms were formed and how their fragility, especially privacy, became evident in practice. Users, fully aware of this, subtly adjusted their behavior, which we interpret through the lens of the observer effect. We frame LLM account sharing as a social practice of appropriation and outline design implications to adapt single-user platforms to multi-user realities.
Paper Structure (47 sections, 1 figure, 19 tables)

This paper contains 47 sections, 1 figure, 19 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. INTRODUCTION
  2. RELATED WORK
  3. Account Sharing as Appropriation
  4. Implicit Norm and its Vulnerability
  5. Observer Effect in HCI
  6. METHOD
  7. Survey
  8. Interview
  9. FINDINGS
  10. Descriptive Statistics
  11. Sharing Relationships
  12. Cost Arrangements
  13. Presence of Norms
  14. Four Types of Account Sharing
  15. Owned-casual
  16. ...and 32 more sections

Figures (1)

  • Figure 1: Illustration of the observer effect in shared LLM use. The figure shows how users act as both observers and targets: as observers, they may snoop or deliberately disclose prompts; as targets, they experience a sense of being observed, leading to censorship and concealment. These dynamics structure how prompts are produced and interpreted within shared accounts.