Health Informatics Lecture Series

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Title: What We Want, Need, and Are Getting from AI and Socially Assistive Robots for Health

Abstract: Language-based AI is now ubiquitous, and physical AI, in the form of robotics, is the next major AI challenge. These advancements are expected to improve human quality of life, with human health being one of the most important applications. As users, we expect machines to understand us and all our unique challenges, predict our needs and wants, do what we enjoy and prefer, and adapt as we change our moods and minds, learn, grow, and age. This talk will discuss how bringing together AI, socially assistive robotics, machine learning, and affective computing is enabling machines to understand, interact, and adapt to users’ specific and ever-changing health needs. We will overview methods and challenges for developing intelligent, proactive, and personalized AI-user interactions that provide understanding, coaching, motivating, and supportive interactions and interventions to a wide variety of user populations across the age span (infants, children, adults, elderly), ability span (typically developing, autism, anxiety, stroke, dementia), contexts (schools, therapy centers, homes), and deployment durations (from weeks to 6 months). We will touch on the challenges of understanding what humans want from interactions with machines vs. what we need and what we are getting, and how those distinctions are shaping the future of not just AI but society at large.

Speaker: Maja J. Mataric

Date/Time: November 19th at 6:30 p.m. CST (4:30 p.m. PST)

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We look forward to seeing you at a future lecture. For more information contact: Dr. Ana D. Cleveland, Regents Professor and Director, Health Informatics Program at ana.cleveland@unt.edu.