Keynote Speakers
Emily Cross - University of Glasgow
Emily is a cognitive and social neuroscientist who directs the Social Brain in Action research laboratory, which is based jointly at the Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, and the MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development at Western Sydney University in Australia.
Using intensive training procedures, functional neuroimaging, brain stimulation, and research paradigms involving dance, acrobatics and robots, she leads a team who explores questions concerning how we learn via observation, motor expertise, and social influences on human—robot interaction.
She and her team are particularly interested in how prolonged experience with robots changes how we perceive and interact with embodied artificial agents at brain and behavioural levels, and how these relationships manifest across the lifespan and in different cultures.
Social Robots for Facilitating Self-Disclosure in Mental Health Interventions: Challenges & Opportunities
Most people’s experience with social robots (defined as robots designed to engage and interact with humans in complex social contexts) comes from science fiction, where we encounter these machines performing a range of tasks from conversing with human companions and assisting with daily life to performing super-human tasks and saving the world. While advances in real-world social robotics have yet to produce machines that are quite as sophisticated as those conjured up on our novel pages and cinema screens, we are nonetheless witnessing rapid progress in the development and deployment of robots to assist humans in social contexts.
One place where this progress is particularly pronounced is in healthcare. Social robots are being equipped with technologies such as sensors, cameras, microphones, and processors which facilitate the high-fidelity collection of human data like position, gaze, speech, emotions, and feelings, and can be used to support real-time analysis of human interaction behaviour. Moreover, recent work demonstrates how interventions deploying social robots can simulate social behaviour and trigger emotions and feelings from human users, thus assisting with mental health. Therefore, as the health psychology research field aims to understand the interplay of psychological, social, behavioural, biological and cultural factors on human health and well-being, human-robot interaction (HRI) research provides unique opportunities for studying how social robots may positively impact human well-being in different areas.
In this talk, I will address several avenues for the introduction of social robots in health psychology settings, such as emotion regulation and support, as tools for health monitoring and clinical management, adopting healthy habits, and assisting with physical therapy and rehabilitation.
Elizabeth Daly - IBM Research
Elizabeth Daly is a Senior Technical Staff Member and research manager leading the Interactive AI team in IBM Research – Dublin. She received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from Trinity College Dublin in November 2007 with her thesis entitled “Social Network Analysis for Routing in Disconnected Delay-Tolerant MANETs”. Before joining IBM Research – Dublin she was a post-doctoral researcher in the IBM Research Centre for Social Software in Cambridge, MA. There her work focused on the intersection of social networks and information systems. Currently her work is focused on Human-Centered AI and developing novel solutions to enable users negotiate a common objective with AI systems.
Her work has received two RecSys Best Short Paper awards and IBM’s Corporate Technical Award. She is on the program committee of conferences such as RecSys, IUI, WWW, UMAP and ICWSM. Elizabeth has served as Program Chair, Workshop Chair and Demo Chair for RecSys and organised workshops at IUI, ICWSM, CSCW and AAAI. Elizabeth recently became a member of the ELLIS society and previously served as Vice Chair of the Royal Irish Academy committee on Engineering and Computer Science and held an Adjunct Assistant Professor position at Trinity College Dublin.
Let's Agree to Agree - Towards Interactions Supporting Users and AI systems Align
The widespread adoption of AI systems in various domains has led to an increased need for mechanisms that support effective collaboration between users and AI systems. While AI systems excel at achieving given objectives, ensuring the user and the AI system are aligned on the same objectives represents a significant challenge.
This talk will present an overview of interactive AI strategies to enable users understand and importantly correct AI solutions. We argue that agreement is essential not only in ensuring that AI systems perform as intended but also in fostering trust and transparency between users and AI systems. We will also discuss challenges and opportunities in designing and introducing such interactions, including the need to balance automation and human intervention, the importance of clear and understandable feedback, and the need for capturing the knock on effects of that feedback.
Our ultimate goal is to promote the development of interactions that support users and AI systems in achieving common goals, while also ensuring that users' values and preferences are respected. By focusing on agreement and collaboration, we believe that it is possible to build more effective and trustworthy AI systems that can truly augment human capabilities in a variety of domains.