Robots with Empathy, with Dr. Angelica Lim

Dr. Angelica Lim, Assistant Professor at Simon Fraser University and Director of the SFU Rosie Lab. Can robots have feelings? In this episode, we explore the intersection of robotics, machine learning, and developmental psychology, and consider both the technical challenges and philosophical questions surrounding emotional AI. This conversation offers a glimpse into the future of human-robot interaction and the potential for machines to understand and respond to human emotions. REFERENCES: [00:03:18] On Designing User-Friendly Robots: Angelica Lim at TEDxKyoto 2012 (https://youtu.be/blLWpdGtYRQ) [00:18:10] Systematic Review of Social Robots for Health and Wellbeing: A Personal Healthcare Journey Lens (https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3700446) [00:24:44] Towards Inclusive HRI: Using Sim2Real to Address Underrepresentation in Emotion Expression Recognition (paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.07472, project website: https://www.rosielab.ca/sim2real-project, Github: https://github.com/sabaak95/confusionDetection) [00:30:17] Contextual Emotion Recognition using Large Vision Language Models (paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.08992, project website: https://yasaman-etesam.github.io/Contextual-Emotion-Recognition) [00:41:42] EmoStyle: One-Shot Facial Expression Editing Using Continuous Emotion Parameters (paper: https://openaccess.thecvf.com/content/WACV2024/papers/Azari_EmoStyle_One-Shot_Facial_Expression_Editing_Using_Continuous_Emotion_Parameters_WACV_2024_paper.pdf, project website: https://bihamta.github.io/emostyle) ToC: [00:00:12] Introduction and Guest Background [00:03:51] Experiences as a Woman in AI [00:05:28] Challenges in Academia for Women [00:07:58] The Role of Coaches and Support Systems [00:09:03] The Need for Reform in Academia [00:11:25] Increasing Visibility for Women in AI [00:14:38] Research Focus: Socially Intelligent Robots [00:18:04] Robots in Health and Wellbeing [00:22:51] Ethical Considerations in Robotics [00:24:38] Inclusive Human-Robot Interaction [00:26:39] Enhancing Emotional Recognition for Underrepresented Groups [00:28:58] The Need of Granularity in Emotion Recognition [00:30:25] Contextual Emotion Recognition: A New Frontier [00:32:43] Multimodal Approaches to Understanding Emotions [00:34:58] Limitations of Language Models in Emotion Recognition [00:38:31] Robustness and Generalizability in Emotion Recognition Models [00:41:59] Advancements in Facial Expression Synthesis [00:45:07] The Nonverbal Turing Test: A New Challenge [00:47:23] Opportunities in AI: Recruiting for Future Innovations WiAIR website: ♾️ https://women-in-ai-research.github.io Follow us at: ♾️ LinkedIn: / women-in-ai-research ♾️ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/wiair.bsky.social ♾️ X (Twitter): https://x.com/WiAIR_podcast #AI #SocialRobotics #EmpathyInAI #EthicalAI #HumanCenteredDesign #WiAIR