What's new in AI? Trust, Creativity, and Shikake

The AAAI spring symposia held at Stanford University in March provide a nice look at the potpourri of innovative projects in process around the world by academic researchers in the artificial intelligence field. This year’s eight tracks can be grouped into two overall categories: those that focus on computer-self interaction or computer-computer interaction, and those that focus on human-computer interaction or human sociological phenomena as listed below.

Computer self-interaction or computer-computer interaction (Link to details)

• Designing Intelligent Robots: Reintegrating AI II 
• Lifelong Machine Learning 
• Trust and Autonomous Systems 
• Weakly Supervised Learning from Multimedia

Human-computer interaction or human sociological phenomena (Link to details)

• Analyzing Microtext 
• Creativity and (Early) Cognitive Development 
• Data Driven Wellness: From Self-Tracking to Behavior Change 
• Shikakeology: Designing Triggers for Behavior Change 

This last topic, Shikakeology, is an interesting new category that is completely on-trend with the growing smart matter, Internet-of-things, Quantified Self, Habit Design, and Continuous Monitoring movements. Shikake is a Japanese concept, where physical objects are embedded with sensors to trigger a physical or psychological behavior change. An example would be a trash can playing an appreciative sound to encourage litter to be deposited.