Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA) 2018 - Sydney Robotics/Gaming /VR/AI Conference

[CheekyChops 12]

Hello strangers, long time, no chat! 

FYI, there is a tech conference in Sydney next week on gaming,  robotics, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence. I thought there would be many Atomicans out there who would find this stuff super interesting, so i'm sharing the details. It's at the Western Sydney University Parramatta City Campus, opening day Monday 5 November. I'll be there if anyone else is going let me know.

Liko-Paul Pinsonnault – Technical Director at Wargaming Sydney will be talking about the secrets behind creating Artificial Intelligence and design for games like World of Tanks,  Assassin’s Creed and Rainbow Six Siege.

Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro – Director, Intelligent Robotics Laboratory at Osaka University is one of the most recognisable faces in robotics. He has created an android copy of himself, called the Geminoid. This guy is amazing - makes me think  about a real life Arnold/Bernard from Westworld

 

If anyone's going, let me know, might see you there :)

https://iva2018.westernsydney.edu.au/

Dear colleagues, On behalf of The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development at Western Sydney University, I would like to extend a warm invitation to you to participate in the upcoming workshops on the opening day of the International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA) 2018. Co-hosted with Macquarie University, IVA 2018 is an international forum focused on the latest research and industry developments in Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence including robotics, gaming, interaction, behaviour, and sensing and perceiving technologies. What: International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents 2018 Where: Western Sydney University, Parramatta City Campus, 169 Macquarie Street, Parramatta When: Monday 5 November to Thursday 8 November

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Workshop 1 - Agents and Models in Serious Games for Change and Social Good Monday 5 November, 1.30pm to 5.00pm This workshop brings together intelligent agents and serious game design. Bringing together the concepts, technologies, and methodologies of the two fields holds the potential to allow their combined strengths to further drive engagement, communication, and understanding between innumerable groups around the world. Workshop 2 - “Replicating the replication crisis”: The workshop on Methodology and/of Evaluation of IVAs Monday 5 November, 9.30am to 5.00pm The social and life sciences are in a crisis of methodology as the results of many scientific studies are difficult or impossible to replicate in subsequent investigation. Join us as we critically but constructively discuss the empirical methods that are used in Human Computer Interaction, specifically in the area of Intelligent Virtual Agents. Workshop 3 - Graphical and Robotic Embodied Agents for Therapeutic Systems (GREATS18) Monday 5 November, 9.30am to 12.30pm Social robots and intelligent graphical agents are being applied to a growing number of health applications. While looking at health applications in general, this workshop seeks to focus on those aimed at diagnosis and treatment of specific conditions, i.e therapeutic applications, and training for doctors in these fields.

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IVA 2018 KEYNOTE SPEAKERS: Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro – Director, Intelligent Robotics Laboratory at Osaka University One of the most recognisable faces in robotics, Professor Ishiguro has created an android copy of himself, called the Geminoid. Associate Professor Mark Sagar – The University of Auckland, and CEO of Soul Machines Professor Sagar is a double Academy Award winner who has worked on characters for Hollywood blockbuster films ‘Avatar’ and ‘King Kong’ and is currently working on building an AI child. Liko-Paul Pinsonnault – Technical Director at Wargaming Sydney Learn the secrets behind creating Artificial Intelligence and design for gaming like Wargamer’s ‘World of Tanks’, and Ubisoft’s titles ‘Assassin’s Creed’, and ‘Rainbow Six Siege’. Mike Seymour – Co-founder of FxGuide and FxPhd; Lecturer at The University of Sydney Advanced capture, rigging, and rendering techniques have resulted in an impressive new bar for the art of recreating the human likeness inside of a computer in real-time. Mike will present his work on photo-realistic avatars.

[Cybes 1,383]

Heya Cheeky!

 

Wow!  I'd love to go - but that's not going to happen, I'm afraid.  No way I can get all my ducks in a row in that timeframe.

I hope someone attending just happens to record to it and post on YouTube.

[Rybags 1,265]

Same here... I've been sort of wanting to get to one of the pinball expos up there and it always seems that I find out days before one's happening.

[scruffy1 1,052]

hiya cheeky !

 

soz, i'll be working (as part of my onerous 3 day week) on monday

 

unfortunate, because parramatta is within easy striking distance using my brand new opal seniors card   (no emoji for "old fogey")

[CheekyChops 12]

47 minutes ago, scruffy1 said:

(no emoji for "old fogey")

Oh there is hehehe  
https://emojipedia.org/older-man/ and https://emojipedia.org/older-woman/

(I just love the fact there is a 'pedia dedicated to emojis!! - but GTFO you are NOT an old fogey lol. I always pictured you as a dashing George Clooney type distinguished guy, def not an old fogey haha)

Maybe next time! Yeah, the last minute notice is less than ideal - my apologies guys,  only just received notice myself. I have been told there will be more events like this in the future, so I will definitely share with everyone when I know about them  

The idea of a real life Westworld was insane though! Id be so keen to hear Prof Ishiguro's keynote and see the robot version of himself. How cool.

 

 

[Cybes 1,383]

39 minutes ago, CheekyChops said:

only just received notice myself

No sweat.  I found out about one Adelaide space conference (at which Elon Musk was speaking on behalf of SpaceX) by dint of seeing a YouTube video from Deep Astronomy - two days *after* it happened! >:I  Nothing at all in local media before or after the event that I found, even looking for it.  Fuckin' football conference it'd be talked about on every channel for months - science... "Who wants to hear about *that*?"

/head explodes

[Fenn 66]

Might be something to keep an eye out for next year - I have a couple of juniors in my life who would go totally spazzy about it!

[AccessDenied 406]

YAY!  I'M A JUNIOR!  

 

AD

[AccessDenied 406]

Wife just commented to me about some people we know.  (Need to keep names offline).  

Yes...  

I don't get her point.  It just means that the number is still +1 more.

YAY! I'M A JUNIOR!

 

AD

[SquallStrife 550]

Welcome to at0mic, don't feed the trolls, ignore Tak........

 

Oh shit it's cheekychops!!! What's goin on fam?

[Kothos 57]

 

LOL don't know if life is laughing at me or throwing me a bone, but I have one sick kid and two who should be at a kindy orientation today - and then I'm busy all day Thursday.  Couldn't have gone Monday either coz hadthe car in the shop.

When do people actually find the time to do anything at all?

[CheekyChops 12]

I mean holy-AI-moley that was an amazing keynote I just witnessed.

Mark Sagar, CEO of Soul Machines gave a demo on one of their latest projects, a legit fully automated AI baby called Baby X. It learns in real time how to interact with humans. It actually needs to sleep to process the learning it has acquired like a real baby would. It learns how to interact and is developing speech just like a baby does, it is conditioned based on interactions in real time. It breaks down behavioural and neurological and biological systems of humans to learn why we act and behave the way we do. Baby X will cried if MArk ignored her, and was happy when he spoke lovingly to her and showed her attention like a real baby.

Mark put the baby to sleep then toggled the levels of dopermine and histermine that the brain releases to make up for the fact you are LOGGING OUT OF THE APP so it stays in a sleeping state - because if it woke up while logged out of the app, it would cry because no one there to give it attention and no interactions to learn from - I wonder if it would start learning from that non interaction within the app- would it start learning to not trust the humans who constantly log in and out, abandoning her? Scary but so incredible this technology.

For copyright reasons we werent allowed to take pics/video of the keynote today, because some of the things in the Baby X demo are not publicly released yet and still in development, but watch this video of a the Baby X demo that is publicly available on Soul Machine's youtube channel. Wow. Seriously amazing.

 

 

Edited November 8, 2018 by CheekyChops

[CheekyChops 12]

On 11/6/2018 at 5:05 PM, SquallStrife said:

Welcome to at0mic, don't feed the trolls, ignore Tak........

 

Oh shit it's cheekychops!!! What's goin on fam?

Heeeey! The green glow always pulls me back, it's always "home" here  

 

AD and Fenn - haha awesome!   I've just been given prior notice that there will be a similar conference like this one for 2019 in Sydney, so once I get more info about it, I will spread the word far and wide. If the little man loves this kinda stuff, definitely check out Soul Machines on Youtube, there are many really cool demo vids with their various AI project work. 

[scruffy1 1,052]

don't torture that baby with a spider, you cruel nz science guy !

it's just a spider, the scary is your feeble construct