Keynote Speakers

From Differentiable Reasoning to Self-supervised Embodied Active Learning

Ruslan Salakhutdinov

Russ Salakhutdinov

Professor of Computer Science
Microsoft Faculty Fellow
Sloan Fellow
Carnegie Mellon University


Abstract: In this talk, I will first discuss deep learning models that can find semantically meaningful representations of words, learn to read documents and answer questions about their content. I will introduce methods that can augment neural representation of text with structured data from Knowledge Bases (KBs) for question answering, and show how we can answer complex compositional questions over long structured documents using a text corpus as a virtual KB. In the second part of the talk, I will show how we can design modular hierarchical reinforcement learning agents for visual navigation that can handle multi-modal inputs, perform tasks specified by natural language instructions, perform efficient exploration and long-term planning, build and utilize 3D semantic maps to learn both action and perception models in self-supervised manner, while generalizing across domains and tasks.

Bio: Russ Salakhutdinov is a UPMC Professor of Computer Science in the Department of Machine Learning at CMU. He received his PhD in computer science from the University of Toronto. After spending two post-doctoral years at MIT, he joined the University of Toronto and later moved to CMU. Russ's primary interests lie in deep learning, machine learning, and large-scale optimization. He is an action editor of the Journal of Machine Learning Research, served as a program co-chair for ICML2019, served on the senior programme committee of several top-tier learning conferences including NeurIPS and ICML. He is an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow, Microsoft Research Faculty Fellow, Canada Research Chair in Statistical Machine Learning, a recipient of the Early Researcher Award, Google Faculty Award, and Nvidia's Pioneers of AI award.

Incorporating haptics into the theatre of multimodal experience design; and the ecosystem this requires

Karon MacLean

Karon MacLean

Professor, Computer Science
Director, UBC Designing for People Research Cluster University of British Columbia, Canada


Abstract: When novice - and sometimes expert - hapticians need to ideate about how to implement haptic media in given applications, they often struggle to get beyond variations of vibrotactile notification or directional guidance, even given examples — of alternative framings of how tactile and force sensations could be utilized, of how such sensations can be delivered and what they can feel like. Why is our imagination of haptic technology so limited, when touch in the “real” world is bogglingly rich and essential? What stands in the way of innovation in how we use haptics in multimodal design, as the technology itself becomes more mature and diverse? How can we expand our vision of the roles it could take in the multimodal theatre of a designed experience? I trace these questions to four major gaps: in (I) Inspiration - the lack of interesting examples available to most of us; (II) Theory - of diverse ways to conceptualize the role of haptics in UX design; (III) Process - the many challenges of working with the technology itself and integrating it into multimodal workflows; and (IV) Value - the difficulty of making a hard-edged business case for an element which often enriches rather than enables. To discuss both these gaps and approaches to surmounting them, I will draw on decades of design experience in my group as well as work with expert and novice hapticians and industry leaders, framed in the rich use cases of learning technology and mental health applications.

Bio: Karon MacLean is Professor in Computer Science at UBC, with degrees in Biology and Mechanical Engineering (BSc, Stanford; M.Sc. / Ph.D, MIT) and time spent as a professional robotics engineer (Center for Engineering Design, University of Utah) and haptics / interaction researcher (Interval Research, Palo Alto). At UBC since 2000, MacLean's research is at the intersection of robotics, human-computer and human-robot interaction (HCI and HRI), psychology and social practices. She is most known for her work in communicating functional and affective/emotional information through our sense of touch (haptics), and in supporting haptic and multimodal design. She has contributed design practices, inventions, and findings in cognition, affective modelling and complex sociotechnical systems, and acted as a bridge between dispersed haptic communities from robotics and human-computer interaction. With her group, MacLean has published over 150 peer-reviewed publications, many of them garnering awards. She has received distinctions such as the Charles A McDowell Award (UBC’s highest research award), was named an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer (2019) and placed in the “Top 30 Women in Robotics” in 2020. As a leader in her respective fields, MacLean co-founded the IEEE Transactions on Haptics, 2008), reinvented top conferences as their general chair (IEEE HAPTICS, 2012; ACM Virtual UIST, 2020), advises on numerous international academic and industry boards, and has led award juries for all major conferences in her area. She is currently Special Advisor, Innovation and Knowledge Mobilization to UBC’s Faculty of Science. MacLean founded and directs UBC’s multi-disciplinary Designing for People (DFP) Research Cluster and NSERC CREATE training program (25 researchers spanning 11 departments and 5 faculties - dfp.ubc.ca), which has transformed UBC’s HCI presence worldwide, and the practice of researchers across campus.

Theory Driven Approaches to the Design of Multimodal Assessments of Learning, Emotion, and Self-Regulation in Medicine

Susanne P. Lajoie, FRSC

Susanne P. Lajoie, FRSC

Professor of Educational and Counselling Psychology
Canadian Research Chair Tier 1, Advanced Technologies for Learning Authentic Settings
McGill University



Abstract: Psychological theories can inform the design of technology rich learning environments (TREs) to provide better learning and training opportunities. Research shows that learners do better when interacting with material that is situated in meaningful, authentic contexts. Recently, psychologists are interested in the role that emotion plays in learning with technology. Lajoie investigates the situations under which technology works best to facilitate learning and performance by examining the relations between cognition (problem solving, decision making), metacognition (self-regulation) and affect (emotion, beliefs, attitudes, interests, etc.) in medicine. Examples of advanced technologies to support medical students during critical thinking and problem solving, collaboration, and communication will be presented along with a description of multimodal methodologies for assessing the relationship between affect and learning in medical contexts. These methodologies include physiological and behavioral indices, think aloud protocols, eye tracking, self report, etc. Examples will be presented of how TREs can determine when learners are engaged and happy as opposed to bored and angry while learning. Findings from this type of research helps identify the best way to tailor the learning experience to the cognitive and affective needs of the learner.

Bio: Professor Lajoie is a Canada Research Chair in Advanced Technologies for Learning in Authentic Settings in the Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology and a member of the Institute for Health Sciences Education at McGill University. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the American Psychological Association as well as the American Educational Research Association (AERA). She received the ACFAS Thérèse Gouin-Décarie Prize for Social Sciences along with the AERA-TICL Outstanding International Research Collaboration Award. Dr. Lajoie directs the Learning Environments Across Disciplines partnership grant funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Counsel in Canada. Dr. Lajoie explores how theories of learning and affect can be used to guide the design of advanced technology rich learning environments to promote learning in medicine.

Socially Interactive Artificial Intelligence: Past, Present and Future

Elisabeth André

Elisabeth André

Chair for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence
University of Augsburg, Augsburg, Germany



Abstract: Socially interactive artificial agents are no longer mere fiction. For many, they are already part of everyday life. Due to technical advances in multimodal behavior analysis and synthesis, the asymmetry of communication between machines and humans is dissolving. Consequently, the interaction with robots and virtual characters has become more intuitive and natural, particularly for everyday users. Nevertheless, there is still some work to be done until artificial agents are able to smoothly interact with people over more extended periods in their homes and to cope with unforeseen situations. In my talk, I will recall my journey into the field of socially interactive Artificial Intelligence starting in the 90ies with the development of the Personalized Plan-Based Presenter (in short, the PPP Persona). This cartoon character explained technical devices to users by combining speech, gestures, and facial expressions. We quickly realized that we had to equip such characters with a certain amount of social and emotional intelligence to keep users engaged over a more extended period. Furthermore, it became clear that creating such agents is not a job that can be done by computer scientists alone. In collaboration with social and medical sciences, dramaturgy, and media art colleagues, we developed a wide range of applications with socially interactive characters or robots over the past years, including art and entertainment, cultural training and social coaching, and more recently, personal wellbeing and health. In my talk, I will describe various computational methods to implement socially interactive behaviors in artificial agents. Besides analytic methods informed by theories from the cognitive and social sciences, I will discuss empirical approaches that enable an artificial agent to learn socially interactive behaviors from recordings of human-human interactions or life interactions with human interlocutors. I will highlight opportunities and challenges that arise from neural behavior generation approaches that promise to achieve the next level of human-likeness in virtual agents and social robots. Finally, I will share lessons we learnt during the development of socially interactive agents. To benefit users, we do not just have to work on technical solutions, but go beyond disciplinary boundaries to encompass ethical, legal, and social implications of employing such agents.

Bio: Elisabeth André is a full professor of Computer Science and Founding Chair of Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence at Augsburg University in Germany. She has a long track record in multimodal human-machine interaction, embodied conversational agents, social robotics, affective computing and social signal processing. Her work has won many awards including the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz Prize 2021, with 2.5 Mio € the highest endowed German research award. In 2010, Elisabeth André was elected a member of the prestigious Academy of Europe, and the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. In 2017, she was elected to the CHI Academy, an honorary group of leaders in the field of Human-Computer Interaction. To honor her achievements in bringing Artificial Intelligence techniques to Human-Computer Interaction, she was awarded a EurAI fellowship (European Coordinating Committee for Artificial Intelligence) in 2013. In 2019, she was named one of the 10 most influential figures in the history of AI in Germany by the National Society for Informatics (GI). Since 2019, she is serving as the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing.


ICMI 2021 ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction. Copyright © 2020-2024