EMOTIONAL AI WORKSHOPS  - Call for Abstracts

Peter Mantello Announcement
Location
Japan
Subject Fields
Diplomacy and International Relations, Human Rights, Humanities, Public Policy, Social Sciences

EMOTIONAL AI WORKSHOPS 

July 9th and July 12th 

Call for abstracts

Emotional AI refers to technologies that use affective computing and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to sense, learn about and interact with human emotional life. The term ‘emotional AI’ does not mean that technologies experience emotions, but that they simulate an understanding of emotions and (may) respond appropriately. Techniques are diverse, including machine reading of words/images or seeing/sensing facial expressions, gaze direction, gestures, voice and bodies. The latter includes heart rates, temperature, respiration and electrical properties of skin.  In civic contexts, it is used to track and score the emotionality of cities; utilize online emotion in social media for political campaigns; assist physiological/mental wellbeing through monitoring via wearables, and ensure better education by monitoring student engagement. In security contexts, it is used to heighten and target surveillance; and to track frontline services in stressful situations.  In commercial contexts, emotional AI is used to: create responsive adverts and retail outlets that gauge emotional reactions through facial expressions; increase convenience via conversational agents in smart homes; gauge emotion in workplaces; provide immersive, adaptive and entertaining play via creative media.

Workshop One explores the potential for these technologies by focusing on social benefits and harms. The goal is to better understand the ways in which such emerging technologies, commercial applications (such as in advertising/marketing) impact citizens in Japan, how average citizens feel about them, laws and governance that guide these technologies, and how we can have the best of these technologies and fewer harms. 

Workshop Two explores key issues and challenges surrounding the deployment of emotional AI in local law enforcement, cyber-security, conflict zones and border control. Topics include: predictive policing; voice and facial recognition technologies at borders; autonomous military systems; the role of smart bots in manipulating/triggering user emotions in social media and their use in computational propaganda. The goal of this workshop is to better understand factors unique to Japan and the UK, discuss citizen reactions, address questions of ethics and privacy in both Japanese and British contexts.

These two day-long workshops bring together an interdisciplinary mix of speakers from government, commercial industry, and academia and will be held on July 9th and July 12th at Ritsumeikan Tokyo Campus.  We invite abstracts from researchers working on any of the various issues and topics listed above. 

Emotional AI is a UK-Japan Connections grant awarded by UK Economic and Social Research  Council and Humanities Research Council (ESRC) and Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). It aims at fostering the development of long-term relationships with Japanese researchers in the field of social sciences and humanities (SSH). 

For further information please visit our site http://emotionalai.bangor.ac.uk/workshops.php.en

Or contact Professor Peter Mantello at mantello@apu.ac.jp or Professor Andrew McStay at mcstay@bangor.ac.uk

Contact Information

Professor Peter Mantello at mantello@apu.ac.jp or Professor Andrew McStay at mcstay@bangor.ac.uk.

Contact Email
mantello@apu.ac.jp