IROS2024 Workshop Proposal:
Workshop on
'The Grand Challenge of Cybernetic Avatars: Dreams and Facts'
Duration and Date
Duration: Half-day
Preferred date: Oct 14th, 2024
Organizers
Norihiro Hagita (ATR, Japan)
Khalifa Juma AlQama (DFL, UAE)
Miwako DOI (NICT, Japan)
Hiroshi Ishiguro (Osaka University, Japan)
Arianna Menciassi (SSSA, Italy)
Paolo Dario (SSSA, Italy / DFL, UAE)
Abstract
We propose a workshop on cybernetic avatar (CA) as a future vision of robots that can both improve productivity and enrich people's lives. Cybernetic Avatar (CA) is a generic term for human enhancement and augmentation systems. Using multiple avatars may free people from several physical, brain, space, and time constraints, and enable them to do what they want to do in good health and to live a new life based on socially accepted norms.
This workshop will introduce the vision, the benefits and some limitations posed by a future society with CAs in 2050, with particular reference to the Japanese Moonshot Goal 1 Program (https://www8.cao.go.jp/cstp/english/moonshot/sub1_en.html) and to the activities of the joint lab between JST and Dubai Future Foundation to be developed into an international R&D effort. Invited speakers will present the latest R&D activities and the scientific and technical challenges on CAs including androids, 3D-CG avatars, social robots, and in-body CAs within body and cells. The potential advantages of a well-balanced society of humans and CAs for a sustainable development – in terms of reduced needs for unnecessary traveling, efficiency, continuous and discrete assistance to citizens health, and more – is strong. Several CA systems will offer the audience several cases of in-depth analysis, inspiration and debate on opportunities and challenges for research and to explore creative solutions. In fact, a strong potential exists for several CAs to generate grand challenges for robotics and new frontiers for next generation of robotics, as well as to create new teleoperation markets with social acceptance.
Content
The workshop aims at introducing the concept and the objectives of Cybernetic Avatars (CAs), as outlined in the Japanese Moonshot Goal 1 Program (https://www.jst.go.jp/moonshot/en/program/goal1/index.html), that is the realization of a society in which human beings can be free from limitations of body, brain, space, and time by 2050.
CA is a generic term for human enhancement and augmentation systems. Using multiple avatars may free people from several physical, brain, space, and time constraints they have to deal with inside and outside their body, and enable them to do what they want to do in good health and to live a new life based on socially accepted norms.
This Workshop will address primarily the technical aspects of CAs, with reference to two different CA configurations (outside and inside the human body). A second Workshop is also proposed, addressing primarily the “philosophical” aspects of CAs and their acceptability for different classes of users, as evaluated through analysis and systematic tests conducted in different sites (including the Dubai Future Labs and the Dubai Mall) with different users. The two half-day workshops are proposed to be held both at IROS 2024, in two subsequent days, but they could be accepted and offered also independently.
After a general introduction to the objectives of the Moonshot Goal 1 Program two typical configurations of CAs will be illustrated in detail: the first involves the realization of an avatar-symbiotic society where everyone (including disabled, frail elderly, minorities) can perform active social roles without constraint; the second example relates to an in-body Cybernetic Avatar (in-body CA) that can visualize the state of health in the body.
The avatar-symbiotic society will include multiple teleoperated CAs that can fully transmit the user's actions, intentions, and reactions in scenarios which feature hospitality-rich dialogue and will allow users to take part in various social activities (work, education, medical care, daily life, etc.). A major scientific and technical challenge posed by this paradigm is the teleoperation of multiple CAs by a single user and the interaction of a single CA with multiple users.
During the workshop, the latest results of the next-generation Brain Machine Interface technology will also be presented, which allows CAs to express what they think in their heads by controlling their words and actions. The in-body CAs require to implement efficient spatio-temporal environmental information in the body. This can be achieved by distributing and coordinating multiple types of millimeter-, micro-, and nanoscale in-body CAs to realize health monitoring and ultraminimally invasive diagnostics. The ultimate goal is to develop a system useful for health maintenance, diagnosis, and disease prevention, that could be used by people in their daily lives, thereby contributing to societal health and longevity.
Invited speakers will present the latest R&D activities and the scientific and technical challenges on CAs including androids, 3D-CG avatars, social robots, and in-body CAs within body and cells. The potential advantages of a mixed society of humans and CAs for a sustainable development – in terms of reduced needs for unnecessary traveling, efficiency, optimal use of energy, continuous and discrete assistance to citizens health, especially for the elderly, increased safety of humans in dangerous tasks, reusability, and more – is strong and it will be addressed in detail.
In addition, short papers to be presented orally as teasers and discussed as posters in an interactive session will be solicited by means of a Call and by engaging the members of some endorsing RA TCs. Topics that are relevant to this Workshop include, but are not limited to: algorithms for Human-Robot-Avatar Interaction, predictive modeling of human intentions for avatar behavior, motion planning and coordination in collaborative tasks with avatars, user studies for evaluating human-avatar interaction, enhancing transparency and explainability in AI for avatars, benchmarking and use cases for understanding avatar explainability, social dynamics and empathy in avatar-mediated interactions, human-centered design approaches for avatar development, novel applications of cybernetic avatars in real-world scenarios, micro- and nano technologies for in-vivo avatars, and more.
Finally, a round table discussion with participation of the speakers and of the audience will offer all participants – along with the networking poster session - the possibility to interact with experts and peers, to ask questions and to express opinions on several hot issues, such as the intriguing scientific and technical problems that are posed by the CA scenarios, the opportunities for frontier research, the role of artificial intelligence, the importance of inter- and transdisciplinary research, the opportunity and need for international collaboration, for developing novel industrial products, and for addressing fundamental societal issues, with special attention to the respect of the human person, of diversity and of the planet.
Estimated Attendance
We will target a variety of potential participants who could be attracted by the novelty and interdisciplinarity of the theme, by the frontier research flavor and by the qualification of the speakers. In particular, the Cybernetic Avatar approach could offer new and creative opportunities to the issue of sustainable development. The international collaboration already implemented by the proposers is an additional factor of interest for the audience, that could find many opportunities for research and work at the participants’ sites. Young participants will be targeted by a dedicated Call for Papers, that would offer to selected contributions visibility in the oral session, and fruitful personal interactions with senior researchers and colleagues during the interactive poster session and general discussion. Some RAS TCs will be also engaged to disseminate the information and to attract participants from a diversity of scientific and technical fields, and from communities outside the robotics domain.Based on similar events organized previously by the proposers, the audience could be estimated to be between 50 and 80 participants.
List of Invited Speakers
Six males and two females will contribute our workshop as invited talks. They are the Program Director, the Sub-Program Director, Program Managers, and PI in the Moonshot Goal 1 Program and/or expertise researchers in the diverse range of research fields of the workshop.
- Prof. Paolo Dario,
Male, Italy,
Professor and former-Director, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (SSSA) and
Chief Scientist, Dubai Future Labs (DFL) - Prof. Norihiro Hagita,
Male, Japan,
Program Director, JST Moonshot Goal 1 Program,
Director, ATR Norihiro Hagita Laboratory and
Professor, Osaka University of Arts - Prof. Alberto Sanfeliu,
Male, Spain,
Professor, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Barcelona, Spain and
PI, JST Moonshot Goal 1 Program - Dr. Miwako Doi,
Female, Japan,
Auditor, NICT and
Sub-Program Director, JST Moonshot Goal 1 Program - Prof. Hiroshi Ishiguro,
Male, Japan,
Professor, Osaka University and
Project Manager, JST Moonshot Goal 1 Program - Prof. Fumihito Arai,
Male, Japan,
Professor, The University of Tokyo and
Project Manager, JST Moonshot Goal 1 Program - Dr. Tarek Taha,
Male, Australia,
LEAD, Robotics Lab, Dubai Future Labs (DFL), UAE - Prof. Arianna Menciassi (SSSA),
Female, Italy,
Professor, SSSA - Dr. Ryota Kanai,
Male, Japan,
CEO, Araya Inc., Japan and
Project Manager, JST Moonshot Goal 1 Program
Other workshops
The JST Moonshot Goal 1 Program has already held a few conferences and symposiums such as SII 2024 (January 2024) and ICSR 2024 (December 2023) related to the Avatar-Symbiotic Society and the domestic consortium will be held more than three times before May, 2024, so we will announce this workshop information at the site as well.Past major events related to the workshop that our program organized are as follows:
- Small-size workshop at International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR2022) (Hybrid, International):
Title: Realization of Avatar-Symbiotic Society. Everyone can Perform Active Roles without Constraint
Date: December 13, 2022
Site: The 14th International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR2022), Florence, Italy
URL: https://dil.atr.jp/ITB/en/workshop-icsr2022/
Number of Participants: 24 - Middle size Special Session on 2023 IEEE/SICE International Symposium on System Integration (SII2023) (Hybrid, International):
Title: Realization of Avatar-Symbiotic Society Where Everyone Can Perform Active Roles without Constraint
Date: January 20, 2023
Site: 2023 IEEE/SICE International Symposium on System Integration (SII2023), Atlanta, US
Number of Participants: 30 - Middle size workshop at IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA2023) (Hybrid, International) :
Title: Avatar-Symbiotic Society
Date: May 28, 2023
Site: 2023 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA2023), ExCeL London, UK
URL: https://dil.atr.jp/ITB/en/proposed-workshop/
Number of Participants: 60+ - Middle size open forum at the 41st Annual Conference of the RSJ (RSJ2023) (Hybrid, Domestic) :
Title: Moonshot Avatar-Symbiotic Society #2
Date: Sept. 11, 2023
Site: The 41th Annual Conference of the RSJ (RSJ2023), Sendai, Japan
URL: https://ac.rsj-web.org/2023/openforum.html#OF7
Number of Participants: 50
Structure of the events
First, an overview of the future in 2050 and the need for research and development in CA to realize it and the international activities currently underway will be given in invited talks, followed by teasers and panel discussions intertwined with coffee breaks, and finally an open discussion where researchers new to this field, especially young people, can frankly talk with leading edge researchers and close the meeting.
Program
The Tentative Program of the Workshop is the following:
| Time | Talk | Comments |
| 08:30 - 08:40 | Opening Remarks (Norihiro Hagita (ATR)) | |
| 08:40 - 09:00 | Keynote 1 Norihiro Hagita (ATR) Cybernetic Avatars for realizing a society in which human beings can be free from limitations of body, brain, space, and time by 2050 | |
| 09:00 - 09:20 | Keynote 2 Hiroshi Ishiguro (Osaka Univ.) Cybernetic Avatars and the Future Society | |
| 09:20 - 09:40 | Short talk 1 Alberto Sanfeliu (UPC) Cooperative Social PIA (Perception-Intention-Action) model for Cybernetics Avatars | |
| 09:40 - 10:00 | Poster Teasers (Miwako Doi (NICT)) (2 min. x 10 lightning talks) | |
| 10:00 - 10:30 | Coffee Break (with Posters and Networking) | |
| 10:30 - 10:50 | Short talk 2 Tarek Taha (DFL) Transition from indoor to outdoor mobility for Cybernetics Avatars | |
| 10:50 - 11:10 | Short talk 3 Ryota Kanai (Araya Inc) Ultimate BMI-Cybernetic Avatars that can be freely operated by human intention | |
| 11:10 - 11:30 | Short talk 4 Fumihito Arai (Univ. of Tokyo) Structuring Spatiotemporal Environmental Information in the Body Using In-body Cybernetic Avatars | |
| 11:30 - 11:50 | Short talk 5 Arianna Menciassi (SSSA) Technical Challenges and Medical Opportunities for In-Body Cybernetic Avatars | |
| 11:50 - 12:25 | Discussion Norihiro Hagita (ATR), Khalifa AlQama (DFL) and Paolo Dario (DFL/SSSA) [Moderators] Open Discussion with speakers and participants | |
| 12:25 - 12:30 | Closing Remarks (Norihiro Hagita (ATR)) |
Equipment
We learn that one projector and a screen will be provided by default.
In addition, the following equipment is required.
10 Poster stands, for A1-size posters,
2 Whiteboards, and 2 Writing pads.
Plan to solicit participation
The target participants for the workshop are researchers, students, entrepreneurs, and business start-up managers who are interested in a future vision of robotics for sustainable development that can both improve productivity and enrich people's lives. The Grand Challenge's vision and recent research covers a diverse range of research fields on CA, including androids, 3D-CG avatars, social robots, next-generation BMI CA, and intra-body and intracellular CA. The workshop also includes results from international collaborations between Japan and the United Arab Emirates, and between Japan and Spain.
Dissemination
Announcements of this workshop will be made through mailing lists related to academic societies such as "robotics-worldwide" for worldwide and "RSJ-NEWS" for Japan. We will also call on several consortium composed of companies related to avatar and robot services.Our proposed workshop received full support from the IEEE RAS Technical Committees on Human-Robot Interaction & Coordination, Bio Robotics, and Cyborg & Bionic Systems. With their cooperation, we will use their homepages and mailing lists to strongly solicit participation to target researchers.