AI Meets Austen: Towards Human-Robot Discussions of Literary Metaphor

Abstract

Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing formal education, fueled by innovations in learning assessment, content generation, and instructional delivery. Informal, lifelong learning settings have been the subject of less attention. We provide a proof-of-concept for an embodied book discussion companion, designed to stimulate conversations with readers about particularly creative metaphors in fiction literature. We collect ratings from 26 participants, each of whom discuss Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice with the robot across one or more sessions, and find that participants rate their interactions highly. This suggests that companion robots could be an interesting entryway for the promotion of lifelong learning and cognitive exercise in future applications.

Enriching Neural Models with Targeted Features for Dementia Detection

“…This will necessitate that age-related physical and cognitive health issues become a foremost concern not only because they will impact such a large population, but because there will be a proportionally smaller number of human caregivers available to diagnose, monitor, and remediate those conditions. Artificial intelligence offers the potential to fill many of these deficits, and already, elder-focused research is underway to test intelligent systems that monitor and assist with activities of daily living (Lotfi et al, 2012), support mental health (Wada et al, 2004), promote physical well-being (Sarma et al, 2014), and encourage cognitive exercise (Parde and Nielsen, 2019).…”