Dissertation Defense WHAT: Stefan Marti: "Autonomous Interactive Intermediaries: Social Intelligence for Mobile Communication Agents" WHEN: Tuesday, April 19, 2005, 1:00PM EST WHERE: Bartos Theatre, MIT Media Lab (E15) DISSERTATION COMMITTEE: Christopher Schmandt Principal Research Scientist MIT Media Laboratory Cynthia Breazeal Assistant Professor of Media Arts and Sciences LG Career Development Professor of Media Arts and Sciences MIT Media Laboratory Henry Lieberman Research Scientist MIT Media Laboratory ABSTRACT: Today's cellphones are passive communication portals. They are neither aware of our conversational settings, nor of the relationship between caller and callee, nor do they care what the call is about. Moreover, today's cellphones often interrupt us at inappropriate times and in awkward places, oblivious as to what physically co-located people would think of the interruption. This thesis is about adding elements of human-style social intelligence to our mobile communication devices in order to make them more socially acceptable. Marti introduces the concept of an Autonomous Interactive Intermediary that assumes the role of an actively mediating party between caller, callee, and co-located people. In order to behave socially appropriately, the Intermediary, which is implemented as both an animatronic and a conversational agent, interrupts with intuitive non-verbal cues and attempts to harvest 'residual social intelligence' from the calling party, the called person, the people close by, and its current location. MIT Media Laboratory Home Page | Events Main Index