Capstone speaker: Agents? Seriously

Virtual agents, aka embodied conversational agents or virtual humans, are anthropomorphic animated characters that engage people in simulated face-to-face conversation. Applications of virtual agents have moved beyond entertainment and demos to real-world, serious interventions in health, training, education, and other domains. In this talk, I will focus on several conversational agents that have been developed as virtual health counselors and evaluated in large-scale randomized clinical trials. These interventions span cancer self-care, antipsychotic medication adherence, breastfeeding promotion, depression counseling, meditation and yoga guidance for treating chronic pain, preconception care promotion, exercise promotion for geriatrics patients, and more. I will discuss the technical challenges in building conversational agents for the real world, capable of interacting with thousands of patients for months or years, and the evidence base of their efficacy. I will also present a vision for how such agents can be effectively deployed in VR, and a range of promising serious applications that could be deployed using this technology.