Hybrid Intelligence team organized “Human-AI mutual promotion for emotion and cognition understanding” tutorial session at HHAI 2024 conference

Hybrid Intelligence (HI) research programme from the University of Oulu attended Hybrid Human Artificial Intelligence (HHAI) 2024 conference in Malmö, Sweden, and organized a tutorial workshop at the conference.
Hybrid Intelligence team at HHAI conference in Malmö

HI research group organized a tutorial Human-AI mutual promotion for emotion and cognition understanding (HAECU) with keynotes and panel discussion at the HHAI 2024 conference.

Tutorial explored the synergistic potential between AI and human understanding of emotion and cognition

The HAECU tutorial aimed to explore the synergistic potential between AI and human understanding of emotion and cognition. The goal was to reveal how AI can enhance our understanding of human emotional and cognitive behaviors and how these insights can, in turn, guide the creation of more nuanced AI systems.

Participants engaged with a mix of theoretical foundations, practical AI applications, and interactive exercises, highlighting the interdisciplinary nature of this field. The experts were from different fields and offered new perspectives on integrating AI with human emotional and cognitive studies, especially in the field of machine learning and learning sciences, fostering innovative solutions for empathetic and intelligent human-AI interactions.

The workshop included:

  • Keynote HI Foundation: Interactive Intelligence and Cognitive Modelling for Hybrid Intelligent Systems by Catholijn Jonker, Hybrid Intelligence Centre, TU Delft, Netherlands
  • Keynote Emotion/Cognition in HI: From Emotion AI to Cognitive AI by Qianru Xu, CMVS, University of Oulu
  • Keynote AI-based HI 1: Understanding Human Emotions via Multimodality Facial/Micro-Expressions by Yang Liu, CMVS, University of Oulu
  • Keynote: AI-based HI 2: Understanding Human Hidden Emotions from Body Languages by Haoyu Chen, CMVS, Assistant Professor of Hybrid Intelligence proggamme, University of Oulu
  • Keynote Applications: AI to Understand Students' Learning in Education Fields by Andy Nguyen, LET, Assistant Professor of Hybrid Intelligence programme, University of Oulu
  • Q&A Section and a panel discussion.

The participants were proactively engaged in the conversation, and there were a lot of great discussions around the topics from different fields perspectives, such as computer/cognitive science, AI field, learning sciences and cognitive science.

Constant dialogue is needed in between disciplines for understanding different research philosophies and languages for multidisciplinary hybrid intelligence research

Aside from organizing the HAECU workshop, the Hybrid Intelligence research programme had a lot of brilliant take-aways to bring back from the HHAI 2024 conference. The researchers from Hybrid Intelligence group were impressed by the true multidisciplinary nature of workshops that they attended.

“The importance of constant dialogue with other disciplines in order to understand each other was really highlighted. The conference was a great place to make good contacts, also Ethical, Legal and Social Implications Research Program (ELSI) from USA was very much present, more than I expected”, says Susanne Uusitalo, the leader of Ethics Forum, Hybrid Intelligence programme, University of Oulu.

Assistant Professor Haoyu Chen from Hybrid Intelligence programme thought the conference offered a great space to have deeper conversations about the topics since the number of attendees was kept moderate.

Chen seconds Uusitalo´s comment on the need for constant dialogue. The research philosophies between social scientists and AI/computer scientists are very different, and common language should be built and aligned.

“Conversations with researchers from multidisciplinary backgrounds can make one a bit uncomfortable in the beginning, but they will remain as a profound savor in my research philosophy, which is great”, Chen describes.

Both Uusitalo and Chen say that besides workshops, keynote speech about explainable AI, Towards a Synergistic human-machine Interaction and Collaboration. XAI and Hybrid Decision-Making Systems. State-of-the-art and research questions by Fosca Giannotti was very memorable and insightful.

Hybrid Intelligence research programme from University of Oulu and The Hybrid Intelligence Centre in Netherlands continue building collaboration together

Chen also adds that, ‘What Is HI’ competition on the HHAI 2024 conference gives a lot of inspirations to the HI team from Oulu, helping them to reflect how to organize their own HI challenge in the future.

According to the researchers, trending topics at the conference were ChatGPT, mind theory, trustworthy LLM (Large Langue models) was heavily discussed.

At last, researchers from Oulu University (LET and CMVS units) led by Professor Sanna Järvelä and Dutch Hi Centre led by Catholijn Jonker (Hybrid Intelligence Centre, TU Delft) organized a small-scale meeting and successfully discussed the potential collaborations in the future, including organizing workshops together, joint research work, etc. The next joint event will be organizing a workshop on Arctic AI day 2024 in Oulu.

Last updated: 9.7.2024