Papers

Chatbots are computer programs that interact with users using natural languages. This technology started in the 1960’s; the aim was to see if chatbot systems could fool users that they were real humans. However, chatbot systems are not only built to mimic human conversation, and entertain users. In this paper, we investigate other applications where chatbots could be useful such as education, information retrival, business, and e-commerce. A range of chatbots with useful applications, including several... Read more

We performed an empirical study exploring people’s interactions with an embodied conversational agent (ECA) while performing two tasks. Conditions varied with respect to 1) whether participants were allowed to choose an agent and its characteristics and 2) the putative quality or appropriateness of the agent for the tasks. For both tasks, selection combined with the illusion of further customization significantly improved participants’ overall subjective impressions of the ECAs while putative quality had little or no... Read more

When building conversational agents that are to take part in social interaction with humans, an important question is whether psychological concepts like emotions or personality of the agents need to be incorporated. In this chapter we argue for the integration of an emotion system into a conversational agent to enable the simulation of having “own emotions”. We first clarify the concept of emotions and we discuss different approaches to modeling emotions and personality in artificial systems.... Read more

In this paper we wish to describe special version of Ivona Speech Synthesis System with US English voice developed in IVO Software for The Blizzard Challenge 2007. Current system is based on improved speech synthesis technique originally developed for the previous challenge - The Blizzard Challenge 2006. An evaluation made by different Blizzard listeners groups, which gave the highest Mean Opinion Score to Ivona shows us, that nowadays Ivona is one of the top of... Read more

For many years, the HCI community has harbored a vision of interacting with intelligent, embodied computer agents. However, the reality of this vision remains elusive. From an interaction design perspective, little is known about how to specifically design an embodied agent to support the task it will perform and the social interactions that will result. This paper presents design research that explores the relationship between the visual features of embodied agents and the tasks they... Read more

Robotics with AI is part of a long tradition that has run from ancient times that treated the precursors of robots, the automata, as part of Natural Magic or conjury. Deception is an integral part of AI and robotics; in some ways they form a science of illusion. There are many robot tasks, such as caring for the elderly, minding children, doing domestic chores and being companionable, that involve working closely with humans and so... Read more

What is Computational Intelligence (CI) and what are its relations with Artificial Intelligence (AI)? A brief survey of the scope of CI journals and books with “computational intelligence” in their title shows that at present it is an umbrella for three core technologies (neural, fuzzy and evolutionary), their applications, and selected fashionable methods. At present CI has no comprehensive foundations and is more a bag of tricks than a solid branch of science. The change of focus... Read more

AI Chat Bots and Digital Assistants are designed to enhance online experiences and to support branding and transaction requirements. The Report defines a problem context related to interactive character interfaces and presents data analyses using activity maps, talk-throughs, personas, and scenarios. Insights based on subject domain research, interviews, electronic feedback, and observed design practices enabled the pairing of a persona with a scenario in order to identify user problems and to set the requirements for a client-centered... Read more

A chatbot is a software system, which can interact or “chat” with a human user in natural language such as English. For the annual Loebner Prize contest, rival chatbots have been assessed in terms of ability to fool a judge in a restricted chat session. We are investigating methods to train and adapt a chatbot to a specific user’s language use or application, via a usersupplied training corpus. We advocate open-ended trials by real users,... Read more

An experimental approach was used to compare two types of web interfaces (text-based vs. conversation-based) to content on the life and theories of Jean Piaget. The content in each interface was identical with the exception of third- vs. first-person references. Fifty-nine students in psychology first completed a pretest of Piagetian knowledge and then were randomly assigned to one of the two interfaces. After 20 minutes of review/conversation, students completed a 35-item exam designed to measure... Read more