Reception with light refreshments in the lobby at 3:30 PM, followed by lecture

“Robots that Care: Shaping Human-Centered AI and Robotics for a Shared Future”

As language-based AI is becoming ubiquitous, human expectations for intelligent machines are scaling along with it: we expect machines to understand us, predict our needs and wants, do what is best for us and at the same time what we enjoy and prefer, and adapt as we change our moods and minds, learn, grow, and age. Robotics, the embodiment of AI, is not ready to leap into our daily lives, and human-robot interaction is far from being a priority in current AI-driven robotics research and development, while the needs for human-centered services continues to grow, from elder care to nursing to education and training. This talk will discuss how research in socially assistive robotics–bringing together robotics, machine learning for user modeling, multimodal behavioral signal processing, and affective computing–is enabling robots to understand, interact, and adapt to users’ specific and ever-changing needs.  We will overview methods and challenges of using sparse and noisy heterogeneous, multi-modal, personal interaction data and expressive robot behavior to monitor, coach, motivate, and support a wide variety of user populations across the age span (infants, children, adults, elderly), ability span (typically developing, autism, stroke, Alzheimer’s), contexts (schools, therapy centers, homes), and deployment durations (up to 6 months).  We will also touch on the ethical and commercial implications of robots among us.

Maja Matarić is a Chaired and Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, (with appointments in Neuroscience and Pediatrics) at the University of Southern California, and Principal Scientist at Google DeepMind. Her PhD and MS in Computer Science and AI are from MIT, and her BS in Computer Science is from the University of Kansas. She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, fellow of AAAS, IEEE, AAAI, and ACM, recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics & Engineering Mentoring (from President Obama), Anita Borg Institute Women of Vision, ACM Athena Lecture, ACM Eugene Lawler, Mass Robotics Medal, NSF Career, MIT TR35 Innovation, and IEEE RAS Early Career Awards, and authored “The Robotics Primer” (MIT Press). She led the USC Viterbi K-12 STEM Center and actively mentors and empowers K-12 students, women, and other groups toward pursuing STEM careers. A pioneer of the field of socially assistive robotics, her research is developing human-machine interaction methods for personalized support for users with challenges, including autism, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, anxiety, and other major health and wellness challenges. Her research group has conducted many of the first and still largest real-world studies in complex environments–including schools, nursing homes, retirement centers, and homes—to produce deep insights into complex human-machine interaction challenges with real-world users in situ.