The Emerging Design of Graphical Bots and Conversational Avatars

This talk looks at the design and implementation of personalities. We specifically examine graphical bots - conversational avatars - as an emerging design space. These systems employ voice recognition, NLP, realtime 3D, TTS, and client-side rendering technologies. In the design, the psychologist now takes the role that the graphic designer used to play, and as we continue to develop these systems we need to learn, via user-centered research and design, what makes a conversation relevant, interesting and trustworthy.

Mark Meadows is an American author, inventor, and designer. With 20 years in VR, 15 in NLP, and five in robotics, he has founded four companies, designed artificial intelligence applications at some of the world's top research labs (Xerox-PARC, SRI, Waag, others), worked as a government-level consultant in both hemispheres, and has written four books that examine technology and their social consequences. His role at Botanic, LLC is as President, where he leads the vision of the company by inventing new methods of computer-human interaction, designing the hearts and minds of highly social robots.