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How we should design and interact with social artificial intelligence depends on the socio-relational role the AI is meant to emulate or occupy. In human society, relationships such as teacher-student, parent-child, neighbors, siblings, or…
As conversational AI systems increasingly permeate the socio-emotional realms of human life, they bring both benefits and risks to individuals and society. Despite extensive research on detecting and categorizing harms in AI systems, less…
The Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) community often highlights the social context of an interaction as a key consideration when designing, implementing, and evaluating robot behavior. Unfortunately, researchers use the term "social context"…
Recently the field of Human-Robot Interaction gained popularity, due to the wide range of possibilities of how robots can support humans during daily tasks. One form of supportive robots are socially assistive robots which are specifically…
Conversational Agents (CAs) have increasingly been integrated into everyday life, sparking significant discussions on social media. While previous research has examined public perceptions of AI in general, there is a notable lack in…
The progressive advent of artificial intelligence machines may represent both an opportunity or a threat. In order to have an idea of what is coming we propose a model that simulate a Human-AI ecosystem. In particular we consider systems…
To this day, turn-taking models determining voice agents' conduct have been examined primarily from a technical point of view, while the ways in which they emerge as interactional constraints or resources for human conversationalists in…
Conversational AI agents are commonly applied within single-user, turn-taking scenarios. The interaction mechanics of these scenarios are trivial: when the user enters a message, the AI agent produces a response. However, the interaction…
Anthropomorphisation -- the phenomenon whereby non-human entities are ascribed human-like qualities -- has become increasingly salient with the rise of large language model (LLM)-based conversational agents (CAs). Unlike earlier chatbots,…
The ability to speak is an inherent part of human nature and fundamental to our existence as a social species. Unfortunately, this ability can be restricted in certain situations, such as for individuals who have lost their voice or in…
Many hyper-personalized AI systems profile people's characteristics (e.g., personality traits) to provide personalized recommendations. These systems are increasingly used to facilitate interactions among people, such as providing teammate…
Conversational agents (CAs) embodied in speakers or chatbots are becoming very popular in some countries, and despite their adult-centred design, they have become part of children's lives, generating a need for children-centric trustworthy…
Language Model Agents (LMAs) are increasingly treated as capable of autonomously navigating interactions with humans and tools. Their design and deployment tends to presume they are normal agents capable of sustaining coherent goals,…
This study investigated whether human trust in a social robot with anthropomorphic physicality is similar to that in an AI agent or in a human in order to clarify how anthropomorphic physicality influences human trust in an agent. We…
This paper focuses on the opportunities and the ethical and societal risks posed by advanced AI assistants. We define advanced AI assistants as artificial agents with natural language interfaces, whose function is to plan and execute…
This paper investigates the impact of a group-adaptive conversation design in two socially interactive agents (SIAs) through two real-world studies. Both SIAs - Furhat, a social robot, and MetaHuman, a virtual agent - were equipped with a…
The deployment of capable AI agents raises fresh questions about safety, human-machine relationships and social coordination. We argue for greater engagement by scientists, scholars, engineers and policymakers with the implications of a…
Research has shown that human-agent relationships form in similar ways to human-human relationships. Since children do not have the same critical analysis skills as adults (and may over-trust technology, for example), this…
The technology of Conversational AI has made significant advancements over the last eighteen months. As a consequence, conversational agents are likely to be deployed in the near future that are designed to pursue targeted influence…
There has been vast literature that studies Conversational Agents (CAs) in facilitating older adults' health. The vast and diverse studies warrants a comprehensive review that concludes the main findings and proposes research directions for…