Automating Telepresence and Computer-mediated Communication: Identifying Implications and Challenges

A hybrid workshop at the Second International Symposium on Trustworthy Autonomous Systems (TAS '24), 16th September 2024

To attend in person, you must register for the TAS '24 symposium, and select our workshop when registering. Please also contact Andriana (andriana.boudouraki@nottingham.ac.uk) to notify us about your intention to attend.

Online attendance is free. To register for online attendance please fill in this form.

Abstract:

The implementation of autonomous features in technologies for telepresence and computer-mediated communication is a growing trend. Whilst automation in such applications can offer many benefits -e.g., faster communication, reduced mental workload-, it can reduce the users' agency over how they act in social contexts. In addition to these ethical implications around self-presentation, such technologies also pose risks to the quality of interactions and the usability and accessibility of the medium. The research community must take notice, while this field is still at its early stages, and build a research agenda for examining potential issues and mitigating harms. This workshop aims to bring together researchers from different disciplines interested in telepresence and communication technologies, to initiate a discussion on the implications of automation in this field and set directions for future work.

Workshop Activities:

The workshop will consist of group discussions and mind mapping activities, aimed at identifying the implications of automation in communication technologies, at various levels including user-autonomy, usability and accessibility.

Discussions will include the following themes:

Types and degrees of automation in computer-mediated communication
The impact of automation on user autonomy
Usability implications of automation
Ethical implications of automation
Implications of automation for accessibility
Automation in asymmetrical communication set ups
Personalisable & customisable forms of automation
Research methodologies for understanding the impact of automation
The impact of automation on communication and engagement

During the first activity we will look at examples of automation that in existing emerging technologies, and discuss they ways in which autonomous features are integrated in such technologies for different purposes.

In the second activity will take a few key case studies from the first activity, and work through a series of discussion questions to identify ethical implications and other ways in which automation might affect the user in a given instance. For this we will use these cool provocation cards!

Finally, in the last activity, we will talk about ways of addressing the identified issues, and discuss research directions in order to better understand the potential impact of automation in communication technologies going forward.

This will be a great opportunity for researchers interested in building cross-disciplinary relations to propose research ideas and seek new collaborators.

What to bring to the WOrkshop

Attendees will be asked to give a brief (3-5) minute talk to introduce themselves and their work and/or present their position paper.

We also ask that in-person attendees bring their laptop or tablet to participate in shared note-taking through Miro, and connect with the remote attendees through chat.

Workshop outcomes

This workshop will be a great opportunity for people interested in building cross-disciplinary relations to share their work, propose research ideas, and seek new collaborators. The workshop is open to researchers, developers and designers form all backgrounds who are interested in computer-mediated communication technologies and trustworthy automation.

We also aim for this workshop to initiate a more critical research agenda into the ethical considerations of automating forms of communication. Following the workshop, we will be creating a publication, outlining the issues discussed and setting future research directions. All workshop attendees will be invited to contribute as co-authors!

Provisional Schedule (local Texas time)

9.00: Welcome & Introductions

9.30: Attendee presentations

10.00: Activity 1: Forms of automation in communication and telepresence technologies

10.30: Coffee Break

10.45: Activity 2: Potential implications and risks

11.30: Coffee Break

11.45: Activity 3: Directions for future work

12.15: Final discussion

12.30: Closing

Call for Participation:

This workshop is open to any researchers, developers, and designers working in the fields of autonomous systems and/or computer-mediated communication and telepresence technologies.

Attendees are optionally invited to submit a 2-4 page position paper (in the ACM Journals Primary Article format), presenting recent or ongoing work on the topics of the workshop, discussing relevant concepts and methodologies or reflecting on the themes listed above. If you wish to submit a position paper, please email it to Andriana by September 9th.

In-person registration deadline: September 2nd 2024 (requires full conference registration here)
Online registration deadline: September 9th 2024 (requires filling in this form)

In addition, please email Andriana at andriana.boudouraki@nottingham.ac.uk to notify about your intention to attend.

Contact: For any questions regarding the workshop please contact Andriana at andriana.boudouraki@nottingham.ac.uk