Virtual assistants & digital tools: A Workshop on affective technologies’ impact in daily activities of diverse target groups and communities

Abstract

In a rapidly digitized society, digital tools and technologies can be used to improve the well-being and quality of life of citizens and patients. In our ageing society, loneliness and social isolation of older adults presents serious risks, which can affect their wellness, also associated with poor physical and psychological health. Moreover digital tools and technologies can be used to support engagement with a healthier lifestyle in younger communities, through following national or international guidelines (e.g. in terms of nutrition, physical activity, etc.).

Affective technology that uses virtual agents (VAs) holds a great promise for improving humans’ well –being and active life. More specifically due to high costs of long –care services provision to older adults, VAs hold potential to be a user-friendly and cost–efficient way for seniors’ support in the digital era. Additionally, VAs that are voice-activated (e.g. Alexa), known as conversational agents, can support older adults for living alone and even deal with emergencies. Virtual coaching can promote psychological and physical activity improvement in younger populations. Coaching is increasingly recognized as an effective component in the management of chronic conditions (e.g. obesity), and in the promotion of healthy behaviors. However, the introduction of conversational VAs to sensitive groups could raise social legal and ethical implications, which have to be precautiously investigated.

VAs are designed to enhance individual life satisfaction by inspiring trust and understanding. To this direction, VAs are using different communication channels in order to become user–friendly and engage people into interacting with them. VAs can be either chatbots or voice assistants or embodied virtual agents. Unanimous scope of all of them is to be perceived as useful, and trustful as possible by the users. Thus, VAs need to be able to communicate in an expected way with people either by using appropriate verbal or non-verbal cues. The appropriate cues are based on various parameters including context, emotional states of the user, personality and sociodemographic characteristics. Thus, personal data that is considered sensitive need to be available in order to customize a VA in such a way that it will actually be useful and engaging. Additionally, in case of specific target groups as older adults or young adults with daily needs of companionship and affection, VAs need to express a sense of empathy. VAs that uses personal information like gender and personality traits to adapt behaviour and appearance usually affect positively user’s perception of the VA, thus VAs become more likeable. Research indicates that similarities between users and virtual characters even in a gaming environment or virtual world, affect users’ choices, behavior, and perceptions in real world.

However, VAs which replace human-to-human interaction raise considerations overall about the interaction and emotions’ reflection to humans’ personalities and behavior. Limited regulations and frameworks raise serious concerns about VAs’ use in individuals’ routine. On the other hand, sophisticated virtually enabled technologies, that can support and guide individuals to daily tasks, bring indisputably a huge potential for intervention and training purposes. From the key points highlighted above, it is clear that “human-driven technology” agents and platforms have to be strongly informed by human-centred principles, clear regulations of their use, usable and acceptable practices. Concrete recommendations need to be incorporated in the design of relevant gerolontogy–driven future frameworks and an ethical code into the design and AI applications and virtual agents. This workshop invites contributions that seek to address the acceptability, ethicality and usability of pervasive and digital technologies.

Goals

This workshop aims to attract an interdisciplinary group of researchers who are involved in research related to affective technologies’ design and development.

The researchers will present their work and receive feedback from their peers in respect to personal assistants and games’ opportunities taking into consideration that a thorough understanding of social and ethical perspectives is needed for the acceptance of these technologies. As part of the larger theme of the PETRA conference, the participants will also have the opportunity to interact with top scientists working with pervasive assistive technologies, compare and contrast the benefits of affective and pervasive technologies and the potential social, legal and ethical violations or wider communities’ rights. More specifically comprehensive discussion and brainstorming upon ethics in research and design science in respect to sensitive groups could advance the state-of-the-art in the field.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to

• Acceptability, usability and long-term use of pervasive technologies for well-being
• Virtual assistants for the aging population
• Virtual assistants for younger groups
• Neglect of the social and physical environment
• Multiple case studies and mixed methodologies towards user-centred practices and ethical thinking of affective technologies
• Gaming experiences for patient/citizen well-being
• Digital tools for healthcare providers and professionals to support seniors

Workshop Organizers