CS Events
Faculty Candidate TalkDesigning Emotionally-Intelligent Digital Humans that Move, Express, and Feel Like Us! |
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Thursday, February 03, 2022, 10:30am - 12:00pm |
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Speaker: Aniket Bera
Bio
Aniket Bera is an Assistant Research Professor at the Department of Computer Science. His core research interests are in Affective Computing, Computer Graphics (AR/VR, Augmented Intelligence, Multi-Agent Simulation), Autonomous Agents, Cognitive modeling, and planning for intelligent characters. His work has won multiple awards at top Graphics/VR conferences. He has previously worked in many research labs, including Disney Research and Intel. Aniket's research has been featured on CBS, WIRED, Forbes, FastCompany, Times of India, etc.
Location : Via Zoom
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Event Type: Faculty Candidate Talk
Abstract: The creation of intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) or digital humans is vital for many virtual and augmented reality systems. As the world increasingly uses digital and virtual platforms for everyday communication and interactions, there is a heightened need to create human-like virtual avatars and agents endowed with social and emotional intelligence. Interactions between humans and virtual agents are being used in different areas including, VR, games and story-telling, computer-aided design, social robotics, and healthcare. Designing and building intelligent agents that can communicate and connect with people is necessary but not sufficient. Researchers must also consider how these IVAs will inspire trust and desire among humans. Knowing the perceived affective states and social-psychological constructs (such as behavior, emotions, psychology, motivations, and beliefs) of humans in such scenarios allows the agents to make more informed decisions and navigate and interact in a socially intelligent manner. In this talk, I will give an overview of our recent work on simulating intelligent, interactive, and immersive human-like agents who can also learn, understand and be sentient to the world around them using a combination of emotive gestures, gaits, and expressions. Finally, I will also talk about our many ongoing projects which use our AI-driven IVAs, including intelligent digital humans for urban simulation, mental health and therapy applications, and social robotics.
Organization:
Rutgers University School of Arts and Sciences
Contact Mubbasir Kapadia