23rd Workshop "From Objects to Agents" (WOA22)
Call for Papers
The 23rd edition of the Workshop “From Objects to Agents” (WOA) will be held in Genova (hopefully in presence) to serve as a forum for researchers and practitioners working on all aspects of agents and multi-agent systems (MAS). Following the significant interest that all facets of Artificial Intelligence (AI) have been recently obtaining, the topic for WOA 2022 is
Emotional and Believable Human-Agent Interaction
In 1950, in the attempt of formulating the question: "Does a machine think?", Alan Turing devised what in future would have been called The Turing Test, even though for him The Imitation Game would suffice. This test was meant to test a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human. Now, 72 years later, we still find ourselves fascinated by such question, that became more important than ever, and that integrated new dimensions besides "being intelligent": interactions between humans and machines are now expected to be believable and to take emotions into account.
When talking about Agents, we cannot indeed avoid to talk about believable interactions; be them amongst other agents, or even human beings. By interacting, agents establish a means to enhance the chances of succeeding in their goals. In the modern age, we are used to have technology around us, but how much technology is used to have us around? How much the agents are capable of exploiting such interactions? How much such interactions are believable and "emotionally-aware" from the human's viewpoint?
Naturally, the ability of interacting with human beings is not a sole problem of MAS, but a more general issue for the entire AI world. This becomes of paramount importance especially when the AI component has to instill trust in the human user. Such aspect finds a strong connection with the macro area of Explainability in AI (XAI); since the notion of being Believable and Emotional is not orthogonal to the notion of being Explainable to humans.
WOA 2022 will bring together researchers to discuss those issues and to suggest future research questions and perspectives laying at the intersection among Emotional and Believable agents and MAS, and Human-Agent Interaction. Therefore, the workshop aims at working as an interdisciplinary hub for thinkers, students, researchers, and developers who wish to understand and exploit the impact and potential of agent- and MAS-based techniques, when combined with Human-Agent Interactions.
Topics of Interest:
Agents theory and technology related to AI or Believable Human-Agent Interaction
Software engineering techniques for agents involving Believable Human-Agent Interaction
Languages and tools for agent-oriented and Believable Human-Agent Interaction intelligent systems
Agent-oriented architectures for Believable Human-Agent Interaction
eXplainable and ethical AI in agent-oriented models, architectures, or systems to support Believable Human-Agent Interaction
Trust, security, and privacy in the design and development of agents capable of a Believable Human-Agent Interaction
Moreover, the following topics are also more than welcome:
Adaptive, animated, and personality-driven agents
Agent-oriented software engineering
Agent-based languages and platforms
Agent-oriented methods and development tools
Agents and objects
Agents and sensor networks
Agent-based modelling and simulation
Coordination, cooperation and communication for agents
Formal models for agents and MAS
Hardware and software infrastructures for agents and multi-agent systems
Industrial applications of agents and MAS
Learning, planning and reasoning for agents
Security, trust and responsibility in MAS
Software agents and the Web
Standards and interoperability for agents and MAS
Theoretical, conceptual and ontological basis of agents and MAS
along with any other MAS-related topic.