International Society
for Presence Research

Author: Matthew Lombard

  • Call: Towards Ethical Deception in HRI at RO-MAN 2026

    Published:

    Call for Papers: Towards Ethical Deception in HRIA Workshop at RO-MAN 2026, the 35th IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive CommunicationKitakyushu International Conference CenterAugust 24-28, 2024Kitakyushu, JapanWorkshop: https://sites.google.com/view/ted-hriRO-MAN 2026: https://ro-man2026.org Deadline for submission of papers: May 31, 2026 This workshop focuses on the ethical and pro-social use of deceptive and persuasive behaviours in social robotics, exploring how robots deployed in healthcare, educational, caregiving, and domestic environments can strategically employ techniques such as white lies, intentional errors, and selective information omission to improve user well-being and interaction effectiveness. As social robots evolve beyond reactive dialogue systems toward socio-emotionally aware…

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  • AR/VR program transforming technical and vocational education in Ecuador

    Published:

    [This interview from the World Bank Group describes how a carefully planned, industry-academic collaborative program that uses presence-evoking technologies to train students in Ecuador’s Technical and Technological Institutes is improving how students learn auto mechanics. See the original version of the interview for three different images, and for more information (and a video) about the Active Training Using Virtual Reality Program (ACTIVaR) see an earlier World Bank Blog post. –Matthew] [Image: Source: World Bank Blog] Augmented and Virtual Reality Program Transforming TVET in Ecuador April 27, 2026 Job creation is the ‘North Star’ of the World Bank Group’s work, and…

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  • Call: Dyadic: A Research Platform for Online Chat Studies

    Published:

    Call for Use and Feedback: Introducing Dyadic: A Research Platform for Online Chat Studieshttps://telegra.ph/NEW-PROGRAMS-Introducing-Dyadic-A-Research-Platform-for-Online-Chat-Studies-04-30 April 30, 2026 Hi all — I wanted to share a tool I’ve been developing that may be of interest to scholars who run online chat studies. Dyadic (Log In — Dyadic) is a research platform designed for dyadic and small-group online conversations, supporting both human-to-human and human-to-AI interaction paradigms. Here is what Dyadic currently supports: Creating experimental and observational studies with configurable conditions (chats with text, chats with audio) Deploying AI confederates alongside (or in place of) human participants, and deployment of AI suggestions in…

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  • Character.AI feature lets you step inside your favorite classic novels

    Published:

    [Expanding presence for literary texts, a new feature from Character.AI lets users “step inside a classic novel – not just read it, but play it.“ A quick summary is provided in this story from Quasa, where the original version includes four more images. A story in Mashable takes a deeper dive, and one in Digital Trends focuses on user safety. For more information and to access the Books feature, see the company’s announcement on the Character.AI blog. –Matthew] Character AI Launches “Books” — Now You Can Step Inside Your Favorite Classic Novels By Viacheslav VasipenokApril 24, 2026 Character.AI…

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  • Call: Inclusive AI workshop at ICMI 2026

    Published:

    Call for Papers: Inclusive AIA workshop at ICMI 2026,  the 28th ACM International Conference on Multimodal InteractionOctober 5, 2026Naples, ItalyWorkshop: https://sites.google.com/view/inclusive-aiICMI 2026: https://icmi.acm.org/2026/ Deadline for submission of extended abstracts: June 15, 2026 We invite submissions to the inaugural Inclusive AI workshop at ICMI 2026. This workshop aims to rethink AI-based multimodal interaction through the lens of inclusivity, with a focus on diverse and underrepresented user populations. As AI systems increasingly engage in social interaction, they often rely on normative assumptions about communication, behavior, and language. These assumptions can lead to exclusion, misrecognition, and interaction breakdowns, particularly for individuals with disabilities…

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  • AI researchers want AI to fake “thinking”

    Published:

    [In this post from his Machine Society Substack, technology writer Mike Elgan describes new research that demonstrates what we would call medium-as-social-actor presence. The researchers find that when an AI chatbot takes longer to respond to queries, it is perceived as taking longer to think of the answer. Elgan puts it this way: “people judge AI the way they judge people. If people give a slower response, we tend to assume it’s a more thoughtful one.” Elgan argues that deliberately slowing AI response times to manipulate user perceptions in this way is unethical and encourages dangerous delusions regarding the true…

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  • Call: Generative AI Companions: What They Are and Why That Matters

    Published:

    Call for Papers: Generative AI Companions: What They Are and Why That MattersA special issue of the journal Philosophical Studieshttps://link.springer.com/collections/iiaagcacje Deadline for submissions: June 1, 2026 The special issue aims to explore the ontological status of Generative AI companions and the moral upshot of entering into a relationship with these entities. Guest Editors: Marianna B. Ganapini — mbergam1@charlotte.edu Kesavan Thanagopal — kesavan.thanagopal@gmail.com Robert Clowes — robert.clowes@gmail.com DESCRIPTION The pervasiveness of Generative AI (GenAI) companion apps and the ease with which one can use them to create companion chatbots to interact with, have raised some concerns among the general public.…

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  • VR approach may reduce preoperative anxiety in cancer

    Published:

    [This story from Healio describes an ongoing project to develop and test a 45-60 minute “choose your own adventure” presence-evoking virtual reality experience to reduce the anxiety of cancer patients before they undergo surgery. For more details, the original version of the story includes a 5:06 minute video, and a 4:34 minute CBC News Manitoba report about the project is available on YouTube. Although they don’t focus on the role of presence, a quick online search reveals promising results when VR is used to reduce anxiety before cardiac surgery (e.g., these three studies), elective surgery, and for both children and…

    Read more: VR approach may reduce preoperative anxiety in cancer

  • Call: AI and Children: Influencing Societies, Human Values and Governance

    Published:

    Call for Papers: Artificial Intelligence and Children: Influencing Societies, Human Values and GovernanceAn International ConferenceSeptember 10-11, 2026Times School of Media and School of Artificial IntelligenceBennett UniversityGreater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India [and online]https://necs.org/news/calls-for-papers/artificial-intelligence-and-children-influencing-societies-human-values-and Deadline for submissions of abstracts: May 3, 2026 (full papers for accepted abstracts due June 21, 2026) The Times School of Media and School of Artificial Intelligence at Bennett University invites research papers and practice based presentations for an international conference on the theme, Artificial Intelligence and Children: Influencing Societies, Human Values and Governance, scheduled for 10th and 11th September 2026 at Bennett University.…

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  • Sinceerly uses AI to make your AI-generated emails seem more human

    Published:

    [As more people use AI to compose grammatically perfect and typo-free emails, it’s easier to detect the AI and dismiss the message as computer-generated. To counter this break in medium-as-social-actor presence, and to draw attention to the problem, a Harvard student created software that uses AI to edit your AI-generated emails to make them more likely to appear to have been written by a human (!). Details are in the story below from Livemint, where the original version includes the relevant segment of a TBPN podcast (also available on YouTube) in which the creator discusses Sinceerly. See also earlier coverage…

    Read more: Sinceerly uses AI to make your AI-generated emails seem more human

  • Call: Architectures, Governance, and Operational Realities in the Symbiotic Metaverse

    Published:

    Call for Chapters: Architectures, Governance, and Operational Realities in the Symbiotic Metaversehttps://www.igi-global.com/publish/call-for-papers/call-details/9930 Editor:Vincenzo De Masi, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, China Deadline for submission of proposals: May 24, 2026 (Full chapters due: July 26, 2026) A call for chapters is open for the edited volume Architectures, Governance, and Operational Realities in the Symbiotic Metaverse, to be published by IGI Global Scientific Publishing. INTRODUCTION The idea of the metaverse, first associated with Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash and later developed in contemporary strategic and technological terms by Matthew Ball, has evolved from a speculative virtual world into a broader framework for persistent,…

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  • US DOJ grant supports VR training for domestic violence response

    Published:

    [A million-dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Justice is funding the development of a new presence-evoking training program for professionals who respond to reports of domestic violence. This story from George Mason University notes that a primary focus of the project, which may become a national (or international?) model, will be on developing the content of the practice scenarios. See a closely-related March 2026 story from the same source for more details. –Matthew] [VR headsets in the college’s Lab for Immersive Technologies and Simulation] $1 million U.S. Department of Justice grant will support virtual reality training for domestic violence…

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