Distinguished Public Lecture: 'Socially Intelligent Robotics'

'Socially Intelligent Robotics'

Abstract

The current expectation is that artificially intelligent systems such as robots or personal voice agents will be integrated into every aspect of our lives be it home-life, work, leisure, care or education. To ensure that this process happens in a responsible and seamless way I pose the theory that robots must be able to learn socially from people. I will argue that social norms, embedded in people and the context of use must be taken into account when designing artificially intelligent technology and must be interpreted automatically. Specifically, I will address the following questions:

- How do people learn and what is the role of culture?

- Can AI achieve social intelligence?

- How can the design of robots and their social behaviour impact acceptance and optimize collaboration?

By discussing my groups' previous research which involved practical deployments of robots in the real world, I will explore the fundamentally social relationship people have with autonomous robots and offer essential rules for effective human-robot collaboration

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Vanessa Evers is a chair and Professor of Human Media Interaction, University of Twente, the Netherlands. She is also vice-dean of research for the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, mathematics and computers Science and the Scientific Director and founder of the DesignLab, a centre for multidisciplinary projects with societal impact based on 'Science to Design for Society'.

Vanessa has studied Infomation Systems at the University of Amsterdam, Business Information Science at UNSW, Sydney and has a PhD from the Open University UK. She has worked for the Boston Consulting Group has been a visiting Scholar at Stanford University, and a part-time professorship at the University of Delft.

Her work exists at the intersection of Computer Science, Psychology, Design, Philosophy and Electrical Engineering and focusses on human interaction with artificially intelligent systems and cultural aspects of Human Computer Interaction. It covers design of Artificially Intelligent systems that are able to interpret human social behaviours and respond to people in a socially acceptable way as well as the evaluation of the impact of such technology on people and society. She is a frequent public speaker in the media and at international fora such as the World Economic Forum at Davos.

*The lecture will be from 11am - 12pm and reception from 12pm - 1pm.