International Society
for Presence Research

Month: May 2023

  • Call: AI and Fandom – Special issue of Transformative Works and Cultures

    Published:

    Call for Papers AI and Fandom Special issue of open-access journal Transformative Works and Cultures https://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/announcement/view/131 Submission deadline: January 1, 2024 Due in part to well-publicised advancements in generative AI technologies such as GPT-4, there has been a recent explosion of interest in – and hype around – Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies. Whether this hype cycle continues to grow or fades away, AI is anticipated to have significant repercussions for fandom (Lamerichs 2018), and is already inspiring polarised reactions. Fan artists have been candid about using creative AI tools like Midjourney and DALL-E to generate fan art, while fanfiction writers…

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  • Wendy’s, Google testing AI Chatbot as drive-through order taker

    Published:

    [The fast-food chain Wendy’s plans to replace human order-takers for its drive-through service with a more efficient AI chatbot, creating a medium-as-social-actor presence illusion in which “You won’t know you’re talking to anybody but an employee.” Most of the press coverage draws on this story from The Wall Street Journal. Fortune adds these details: “Opinions on what AI will mean for workers and companies vary greatly, from massive disruption to marginal change. In the view of Presto Automation, which offers an AI ordering platform for restaurants, the technology will shake up the industry. ‘I don’t think in three years, there’s going…

    Read more: Wendy’s, Google testing AI Chatbot as drive-through order taker

  • Call: New Perspectives on Joint Attention – Special issue of Topoi

    Published:

    Call for Papers New Perspectives on Joint Attention Special issue of Topoi: An International Review of Philosophy https://www.springer.com/journal/11245/updates/23781996 Guest editors: Anna Bloom-Christen (University of California, Los Angeles, abc22@g.ucla.edu) Michael Wilby (Anglia Ruskin University, Michael.Wilby@aru.ac.uk) Deadline for manuscript submission: May 31, 2023 INTRODUCTION: Joint attention has generated a lot of discussion within a range of areas, most notably developmental psychology and philosophy (Eilan et al 2005; Seemann 2011; Metcalfe and Terrace 2014; Seemann 2021). It is often thought to be deeply implicated in our understanding of other minds (Heal 2005; Schmitz 2014, Martens 2021), our understanding of communicative utterances (Campbell 2019;…

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  • Google’s Project Starline Is an ambitious cure to my remote worker loneliness

    Published:

    [Here’s a first-person report from Gizmodo on a demonstration of the latest version of Google’s Project Starline telepresence system, which was initially a large booth and is now reduced to a large flat screen monitor. See other first-person reports from Engadget and TechCrunch. The TechCrunch story includes a technical description: “Quoting from a Google research publication on the technology: ‘Our system achieves key 3D audiovisual cues (stereopsis, motion parallax, and spatialized audio) and enables the full range of communication cues (eye contact, hand gestures, and body language), yet does not require special glasses or body-worn microphones/headphones. The system consists of…

    Read more: Google’s Project Starline Is an ambitious cure to my remote worker loneliness

  • Call: CONVERSATIONS 2023 – 7th International Workshop on Chatbot Research, Applications and Design

    Published:

    Call for Papers CONVERSATIONS 2023 – 7th International Workshop on Chatbot Research, Applications and Design University of Oslo, Norway and online November 22-23, 2023 https://2023.conversations.ws/ Submission deadline: September 10, 2023 Welcome to CONVERSATIONS 2023, a two-day workshop on chatbot research, applications, and design. This is the 7th CONVERSATIONS workshop. With the surge of interest in chatbots powered by large language models over the last few months, the workshop is possibly more relevant than ever before. Join in for sharing and collaborating between researchers and practitioners in the field. The workshop is located in Oslo, Norway. However, to accommodate for participation…

    Read more: Call: CONVERSATIONS 2023 – 7th International Workshop on Chatbot Research, Applications and Design

  • Music could be key to curbing cybersickness

    Published:

    [A new study supports the use of joyful and calming music to reduce cybersickness caused by virtual reality experiences. The study is described in this news release from The University of Edinburgh. In the researchers’ published article, they write that the results “support the notion that pleasant music is efficient in mitigating cybersickness due to distraction from stimuli, as well as an elicitation of positive emotions.” and “In summary, the implementation of music appears to be a cost-effective, suitable (i.e., without preventing other interactions or breaking the immersion), and efficient technique for mitigating cybersickness in immersive VR.” –Matthew] [Image: Credit:…

    Read more: Music could be key to curbing cybersickness

  • Call: Designing Map-based Interfaces and Interactions (MAPII 2023) – INTERACT 2023 Workshop

    Published:

    Call for Papers Designing Map-based Interfaces and Interactions (MAPII 2023) INTERACT 2023 Workshop 28 August 2023 York, UK [and in remote or hybrid mode if necessary] Workshop: http://avcd.aalto.fi/mapii2023/ INTERACT 2023: https://interact2023.org Submission deadline: May 29, 2023 ABOUT THE WORKSHOP Maps, in their many forms, have long been used to guide and coordinate different human activities, ranging from local to global, and small scale to large scale. As such, maps continue to play a central role as the basis for a wide variety of interactive tools and applications in our modern digital age as well. This workshop aims to bring together…

    Read more: Call: Designing Map-based Interfaces and Interactions (MAPII 2023) – INTERACT 2023 Workshop

  • Embodied AI: Big tech is developing powerful AI brains for real-world robots

    Published:

    [Not only are researchers linking conversational AI to digital avatars (as in an ISPR Presence News post last week), making them more likely to evoke medium-as-social-actor presence, they’re using AI to make embodied robots more capable of human-like behavior and interactions. Here are highlights of a March 2023 VICE story titled “Big tech is now developing powerful AI brains for real-world robots. Building on recent AI advancements to allow robots to complete tasks autonomously in the real world is a ‘major step forward,’ researchers say.”: Researchers at Google and the Berlin Institute of Technology have released an AI model called…

    Read more: Embodied AI: Big tech is developing powerful AI brains for real-world robots

  • Call: AIC 2023 – 9th International Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Cognition

    Published:

    Call for Papers AIC 2023: 9th International Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Cognition Co-located with the International EASE Fall School on Cognitive Robotics University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany September 14-15, 2023 Workshop: https://ease-crc.org/aic-2023/ EASE Fall School on Cognitive Robotics: https://ease-crc.org/fall-school-2023/ Abstract submission deadline: June 16, 2023 (strict) Paper submission deadline: June 30, 2023 (strict) ABOUT AIC 2023 AIC 2023 is the 9th international appointment of the International Workshop Series AIC on “Artificial Intelligence and Cognition”. The AIC series  (see http://www.aicworkshopseries.org/) started in 2013, stemming from the need of creating an international scientific forum for the discussion and the presentation of…

    Read more: Call: AIC 2023 – 9th International Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Cognition

  • Generative AI is forcing people to rethink what it means to be authentic

    Published:

    [Fast-evolving artificial intelligence technologies are making it increasingly difficult to “accurately acknowledge the role of the technology in [our] experience,” in other words, they’re making presence more likely and common. This essay by Stanford Professor Victor Lee in The Conversation explains how generative AI requires us to “reexamine and recalibrate” our assumptions about the roles of technology – the authenticity – in many of our experiences. –Matthew] [Image: Generative AI thrives on exploiting people’s reflexive assumptions of authenticity by producing material that looks like ‘the real thing.’ Credit: artpartner-images/The Image Bank via Getty Images] Generative AI is forcing people to…

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  • Call: “Chatbots and a new kind of responsibility gap?” free hybrid talk May 17, 2023

    Published:

    Call for Participation “Chatbots and a new kind of responsibility gap?” A talk by Guido Löhr of Eindhoven University of Technology May 17, 2023 at 15:00 CET Institute of Philosophy, Leuven (Belgium) and online The KU Leuven Chair Ethics and AI and Working Group on Philosophy of Technology are pleased to invite you to a talk by Guido Löhr of Eindhoven University of Technology entitled Chatbots and a new kind of responsibility gap? The event will take place Wednesday May 17, 2023, at 15:00 (CET) at the Institute of Philosophy, Leuven. No registration is required for in-person attendance. If attending…

    Read more: Call: “Chatbots and a new kind of responsibility gap?” free hybrid talk May 17, 2023

  • New wireless system worn on face or lip produces fragrances in a virtual world

    Published:

    [Researchers continue to look for a practical and effective way to add smells, and taste, to presence experiences. The Scientific American story below describes a new effort that solves some long-standing problems, and the excerpt from coverage in MIT Technology Review that follows it provides more details. See the new article in Nature Communications for more information and three short videos. –Matthew] [Image: The first part of Figure 4a in “Soft, miniaturized, wireless olfactory interface for virtual reality“: “A demonstration of the skin-integrated Device 1 in displaying olfaction feedback for providing an immersive experience to users during movie watching. Here,…

    Read more: New wireless system worn on face or lip produces fragrances in a virtual world

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