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The design and application of LLM-based personas in AI companionship is a rapidly expanding but fragmented field, spanning from virtual emotional companions and game NPCs to embodied functional robots. This diversity in objectives,…
As an increasing number of interactive devices offer human-like assistance, there is a growing need to understand the human experience of interactive agents. When interactive artefacts with human-like features become intertwined in our…
This paper describes our research on AI agents embodied in visual, virtual or physical forms, enabling them to interact with both users and their environments. These agents, which include virtual avatars, wearable devices, and robots, are…
Human presence has traditionally been constrained by the limits of physical embodiment, allowing individuals to exist in only one place at a time. This article introduces Multi-Existence Identity (MEI)- a socio-technical framework that…
Recent advancements in Large Language Models (LLMs) have greatly enhanced natural language understanding and content generation. However, these models primarily operate in disembodied digital environments and lack interaction with the…
AI agents today are mostly siloed - they either retrieve and reason over vast amount of digital information and knowledge obtained online; or interact with the physical world through embodied perception, planning and action - but rarely…
As artificial intelligence shifts from pure tool for delegation toward agentic collaboration, its use in the arts can shift beyond the exploration of machine autonomy toward synergistic co-creation. While our earlier robotic works utilized…
LLM-powered embodied agents have shown success on conventional object-rearrangement tasks, but providing personalized assistance that leverages user-specific knowledge from past interactions presents new challenges. We investigate these…
Personal Affective Physicalization is the process by which individuals express emotions through tangible forms to record, reflect on, and communicate. Yet such physical data representations can be challenging to design due to the abstract…
Co-design is essential for grounding embodied artificial intelligence (AI) systems in real-world contexts, especially high-stakes domains such as healthcare. While prior work has explored multidisciplinary collaboration, iterative…
Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) have demonstrated extraordinary progress in bridging textual and visual inputs. However, MLLMs still face challenges in situated physical and social interactions in sensorally rich, multimodal and…
Blue-collar work is often highly collaborative, embodied, and situated in shared physical environments, yet most research on collaborative AI has focused on white-collar work. This position paper explores how the embodied nature of AI…
A few decades of work in the AI field have focused efforts on developing a new generation of systems which can acquire knowledge via interaction with the world. Yet, until very recently, most such attempts were underpinned by research which…
Large language models are increasingly used for both task-based assistance and social companionship, yet research has typically focused on one or the other. Drawing on a survey (N = 202) and 30 interviews with high-engagement ChatGPT and…
Embodied artificial intelligence (Embodied AI) plays a pivotal role in the application of advanced technologies in the intelligent era, where AI systems are integrated with physical bodies that enable them to perceive, reason, and interact…
The integration of continuous data from built-in sensors and Large Language Models (LLMs) has fueled a surge of "Sensor-Fused LLM agents" for personal health and well-being support. While recent breakthroughs have demonstrated the technical…
Despite the ubiquity of large language models (LLMs) in AI research, the question of embodiment in LLMs remains underexplored, distinguishing them from embodied systems in robotics where sensory perception directly informs physical action.…
Embodiment in conversational agents (CAs) refers to the physical or visual representation of these agents, which can significantly influence user perception and interaction. Limited work has been done examining the effect of embodiment on…
The emergence of virtual companions is transforming the evolution of intelligent systems that effortlessly cater to the unique requirements of users. These advanced systems not only take into account the user present capabilities,…
AI companion chatbots, such as those offered by Replika and CharacterAI, increasingly function as always-available companions that provide empathy, validation, and support. While these systems appear to meet basic needs for connection,…