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.