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- Advanced Technology Laboratories
Launch of the Joint Research Project on “Human Psychology AI” with Leading Overseas Research Institute
～Toward an AI that empathizes with the human through causal understanding of the human mind ～
October 4, 2022
KDDI Research, Inc.
From September 2022, KDDI Research, Inc. (head office at Fujimino-shi, Saitama; Hajime Nakamura, President and CEO) has embarked on a joint research project with Prof. Peter Spirtes and Prof. Kun Zhang of Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States), who are among the world’s leading researchers in the field of causal inference. The objective of the project is to develop “Human Psychology AI” *1 that seeks to deeply understand the mind in order to empathize with people. Through this joint research, we aspire to making cutting-edge research breakthroughs in the field of causal inference that are essential to Human Psychology AI.
With the diversification of lifestyles and values, AI-equipped robots and agents are expected to serve as our partners in various life stages of our lives, including education, employment, and retirement and to suggest actions and encourage growth through individually tailored responses. To meet this demand, it is no longer sufficient for AI just to be cognizant of the behavior it observes but also needs to understand the latent mental states that underlie the behavior. That is, the AI needs to understand the beliefs, desires, and intentions that underlie the behavior as well as the personality and values that shape them. Understanding this causal relationship between behavior and mind is critical toward achieving empathetic AI and human-AI symbiosis (refer to the figure). The goal of this joint research is to develop causal inference techniques to understand the behavior-mind causal links from observable behavioral cues (such as life logs). The technical challenge is to enable the AI to discover deep causal relationships solely from observable data without being limited by, and even discovering beyond, already acquired knowledge (e.g., theories on human behavior).
KDDI Research, Inc. will use the results of this project to realize human-AI symbiosis in which the AI responds sensibly to human needs.
■ Information on the partner of this joint research
University: Department of Philosophy, Carnegie Mellon University
Faculty: Prof. Peter Spirtes and Prof. Kun Zhang
Research fields: Causal inference
■ Reference
Press release on October 26, 2020.
Launch of Joint Research Projects with Outstanding Researchers Overseas | KDDI Research, Inc.
*1 We introduced “Human Psychology AI” in the Beyond 5G/6G White Paper (Section 9.4.2). For details, please refer to the link below:
Beyond 5G/6G White Paper
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