█HIGH-LEVEL EXPERIENCES
Firstly, let’s start by recognising that the content of our everyday lives includes readily identifiable high-level experiences including:
AGENCY — The feeling that you act
BONDING — The feeling that you belong
ATTACHEMENT — The feeling that you care
These experiences are essential for our well-being and all social functions; intriguingly, they are all expressed through touch, and all rely on low-level experiences based on simple skin sensations.
█SOCIAL TOUCH
Touch is a very complex sense. On its surface, one could easily see that most of our actions in the external world generally return informative tactile feedback. For example, there is so much information we receive when clicking a button, catching a ball, or tapping on a drum. Similarly, our social interactions often involve handshakes and fist-bumps, and our attachment to loved ones involves hugs and cuddles. Functional and non-functional touch information is involved in all these interactions. Functional information includes things like an object’s shape or the strength of someone’s grip. Non-functional information involves our sense of agency when pressing a button and our sense of attachment when hugging.
Can today’s haptic technology conduct such information?
Our aim is to find way to do that using TOUCHLESS haptic technology. Our goal is to enrich the tactile information channel, as to create meaningful social touch interactions and radically improve user experiences in virtual and synthetic spaces and go beyond functional haptics.
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TO ACHIEVE THIS GOAL, WE’VE SET OURSELVES THE FOLLOWING OBJECTIVES:
1.
Develop novel touch-mimicking touchless haptic systems for spatial interaction that stimulate multiple skin receptors.
2.
Develop neurocognitive models of haptic-mediated experiences (i.e. agency, bonding, attachment).
3.
Integrate neurocognitive models of touchless haptic with contextual data and machine learning to create a novel predictive hybrid-AI platform.
4.
Enable high-level user experiences such as agency, bonding and attachment.
5.
Disseminate, explore and exploit the implications of model-based experience modulation through touchless haptics
6.
Spearhead economic impact via adoption of TOUCHLESS technologies across multiple industries
To deliver on these objectives, we’ve assembled a team of experts from academia and deep-tech industry.
Follow us on twitter to learn about what we’re up to next.
Community and impact
Touch is our most primal sense. It allows us to express intimacy, feel pain, heat, differentiate between textures, and enable dexterity and tool use. Touch is also extraordinarily complex, and our scientific understanding, cultural expressions, and technological utilization of touch lags significantly behind that of our other senses.
We’ve therefore launched an Open Innovation platform to help forge links between an international network of excellent researchers and innovative companies. Join our Haptics Helix here: https://crowdhelix.com/helixes/haptics/
Artificial Intelligence for extended social interaction
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Artificial Intelligence for extended social interaction 〰️
“AI and immersive technologies have collided” and aim to enhance the social dimension of our virtual social spaces.
TouchlessAI and our 4 sister projects (see below) have been chosen by the EU Horizon 2020 program to contribute towards immersive AR/VR/XR social media platforms that in 10-15 years from now will be as ubiquitous as Smart Phones are today.
The common theme that threads our 5 projects together is that we are all leveraging human-centric and responsible Artificial Intelligence technologies to address issues such as social (mis-) trust, belief formation, the permeation of private and public spheres, social exclusion and divides.
To that end, our joint and individual R&D efforts aim to find ways to bring more social intelligence into the interaction environment and greater user-, contextual- and social awareness. Moreover, we do so through a tighter coupling with sensori/motor- and cognitive processes using, for instance, multimodal XR setups, or minimally invasive interfaces like spatial audio, smart skins, haptics, robotic devices and wearables. We also investigate whether and how the perceptual- and sociocultural parameters implicit in natural, context-rich social interaction carry over to such virtual or hybrid settings. Things like the influence on self-perception, well-being (addiction), acceptance, learning and brain-development/adaptation are also being considered, especially in scenarios of extensive and always-on use. Lastly, an emphasis is given on ethics, responsible innovation, age- and gender differences, safety and health.
SONICOM, EXPERIENCE, CAROUSEL, TOUCHLESS, and GuestXR (SECTG) are EU ‘sister projects’ that are funded under Horizon 2020 FET PROACT-EIC-07-2020 call and subtopic “Artificial Intelligence for extended social interaction”. SECTG has set up a cross-collaboration plan that expands on the interdisciplinary and ambitious goals of the individual projects, with 5 main objectives:
1) To examine any relevant synergies and establish two-way communication and dissemination between the sister projects;
2) To promote the development of science and innovation ideas between the sister projects;
3) To support the creation of a strategic expert group on “Artificial Intelligence for extended social interaction” that can influence and support the development of future legislation and funding opportunities aligned with this field;
4) To nurture the creation of future collaborations that are strategically aligned with the key areas identified and support them in identifying future funding opportunities; and
5) To identify and support stakeholder engagement for the research outputs developed in the sister projects to ensure enhanced project impact.
SONICOM - Transforming auditory-based social interaction and communication in AR/VR. Sound is an integral part of the human experience. As one of the most important ways of sensing and interacting with our environment, sound plays a major role in shaping how the world is perceived. In virtual or augmented reality (VR/AR), simulating spatially correct audio is of vital importance to delivering an immersive virtual experience. However, acoustic VR/AR presents many challenges. Using the power of artificial intelligence, the EU-funded SONICOM project aims to deliver the next milestone in immersive audio simulation. The goal is to design the next generation of 3D audio technologies, provide tailored audio solutions and significantly improve how we interact with the virtual world. Grant agreement ID: 101017743. https://www.sonicom.eu/
EXPERIENCE - The “Extended-Personal Reality”: augmented recording and transmission of virtual senses through artificial - IntelligENCE. In recent years, virtual reality (VR) has found more commercial applications and larger market share. However, VR still holds great potential to enhance interaction and expression. The EU-funded EXPERIENCE project seeks to use VR to enhance daily life by allowing brand new ways of social interaction and personal expression. It will develop the technology required to help users easily create and manipulate their own unique VR environments, significantly improving their virtual experiences. The goal is to bring VR into areas such as mental health treatment, entertainment and education, promoting VR as a means of significantly improving the human experience. Grant agreement ID: 101017727. https://experience-project.eu/
CAROUSEL - Real-life interactions in the digital world. With internet experience nowadays mostly being passive, disconnected, and disembodied, many individuals are isolated instead of brought together. The EU-funded CAROUSEL project aims to overcome the isolation of online users by allowing them to dance and party together even if they are physically separated. Through imaginative combinations of artificial intelligence and immersive interaction technologies, including the creation of life-like digital characters, CAROUSEL will enable internet users to feel each other’s presence, touch, and movement, from dancing together. These developments will help overcome isolation and loneliness and bring improvements to human health, work, and well-being. Moreover, they will generate the foundations for as yet unimagined forms of online communication and expression. Grant agreement ID: 101017779. https://www.carouseldancing.org/
TOUCHLESS Haptic Experiences with Neurocognitive AI. The social distancing measures introduced to restrict the spread of coronavirus and help halt the COVID-19 pandemic have made us realise just how important interpersonal physical contact is to our overall well-being, and which we are currently missing. Even though there are many advanced haptic technologies, they cannot replace tactile interaction that enables bonding physical sensation of care through the stimulation of skin receptors during touching. The EU-funded TOUCHLESS project aims to overcome that challenge through development of a next-generation touchless haptic technology. It will construct neurocognitive models and a novel AI framework to enable touchless digital inducement of the sensation of touch through the receptor response. It will also enable a soothing, affective, social and cognitive experience. Grant agreement ID: 101017746. https://www.touchlessai.eu/
GuestXR: A Machine Learning Agent for Social Harmony in eXtended Reality. Immersive online social spaces will soon become ubiquitous. However, there is also a warning that we need to heed from social media. While user content is the ‘lifeblood of social media’, it often stimulates antisocial interaction and abuse, ultimately posing a danger to vulnerable adults, teenagers, and children. To that end, our vision is to develop GuestXR, a socially interactive multisensory platform system that uses eXtended Reality as the medium to bring people together for immersive, synchronous face-to-face interaction with positive social outcomes. The GuestXR solution will feature a machine learning agent designed to unlock interactions between participants and help them achieve their goals, whilst helping users address conflicts in virtual environments. Moreover, the project technology will be developed under the “Ethics by Design” approach. Grant agreement ID: 101017884. https://www.guestxr.eu/.