3rd International Conference on

Artificial Intelligence & Virtual Reality

December 14-18, 2020 (virtual/online event)

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Welcome History Important dates

Keynote speakers (in alphabethical order)

	Mark Billinghurst, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia, and University of Auckland, New Zealand
Title: Using AR and VR for Next Generation Collaboration Abstract: In the current COVID climate tools for effective remote collaboration have become more important than ever before. The widespread use of video conferencing and other traditional desktop collaboration tools, has shown how limited they are compared to face to face collaboration. This presentation reviews research in Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) and shows how it can be used for next generation collaboration. In particular AR and VR can be used to re-introduce the spatial cues missing from desktop and mobile conferencing, and also makes it possible to communicate with rich non-verbal cues common in face to face conversation. In addition, AR/VR can be used to enable capabilities not available in face to face collaboration, such as being able to change body scale, share perspective, or having multiple people inhabit the same virtual body. The presentation will review this and also discuss research directions that could significantly improve collaboration in the future. Bio: Mark Billinghurst is Professor at the University of South Australia in Adelaide, Australia, and also at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, directing the Empathic Computing Laboratory. He earned a PhD in 2002 from the University of Washington and researches how virtual and real worlds can be merged, publishing over 550 papers on Augmented Reality, remote collaboration, Empathic Computing, and related topics. In 2013 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, and in 2019 was given the ISMAR Career Impact Award in recognition for lifetime contribution to AR research and commercialization.
	Andrew Glassner, Weta Digital
Title: AI+VR: The Kayfabe Life Abstract: Let's look past today's technologies and imagine the future they are enabling. On the VR side, we'll have circuitry intimately connected to our bodies and brains, augmenting or even replacing sensory data, perceptions, thoughts, and memories. On the AI side, we'll be able to synthesize this information with such fidelity and coherence that we will be unable to distinguish it from objective sources. What happens when these technologies merge? Much that is good, and much that is not. In this talk we discuss both types of changes, and offer some steps for consciously building a future we would want to live in. Bio: Andrew Glassner is a Senior Research Scientist at Weta Digital, where he uses deep learning to help artists produce visual effects for movies and television. Glassner served as Papers Chair of the SIGGRAPH '94 Papers Committee, Founding Editor of the Journal of Computer Graphics Tools, and Editor-in-Chief of ACM Transactions on Graphics. A popular speaker, Glassner has delivered invited addresses to groups around the world on topics such as computer graphics, the technical and social aspects of deep learning, story structure, and narrative. Andrew is a well-known writer of numerous technical papers and books. His book "3D Computer Graphics: A Handbook for Artists and Designers" taught a generation of artists, and his online 2D graphics class taught a new generation graphic designers and artists. Glassner created and edited the "Graphics Gems" series, edited the classic book "An Introduction to Ray Tracing," and wrote the two-volume text "Principles of Digital Image Synthesis." His most recent technical book is "Deep Learning: A Visual Approach" from No Starch Press. Glassner has written and directed live-action and animated films, and was creator-writer-director of an online multiplayer murder-mystery game for The Microsoft Network. He has written novels and screenplays, and is developing a serialized story for podcast. He has carried out research at labs such as the NYIT Computer Graphics Lab, Xerox PARC, Microsoft Research, and Weta Digital. Andrew holds a PhD in Computer Science from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a Voting Member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. In his spare time, Andrew paints, composes music, plays jazz piano, writes novels, and takes dog-friendly hikes.
	Victoria Interrante, University of Minnesota, USA
Title: Spatial Perception in Virtual Architectural Environments Abstract: Immersive Virtual Reality technology has transformative potential applications in architecture and design. In this talk I will review some of the work my lab has done to address fundamental challenges in effectively deploying VR technologies in architecture and design applications, focusing primarily on our investigations of factors influencing spatial perception accuracy in immersive architectural environments, but also touching on some examples of the use of VR technology to investigate other questions of interest to architectural and interior designers. Bio: Victoria Interrante is a full professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota, where she is also currently serving as the director of the university-wide Center for Cognitive Sciences. Dr. Interrante's research interests encompass all aspects of the design, implementation, and evaluation of virtual reality applications for social good. In addition to her long-standing efforts related to spatial perception and presence, other recent projects have focused on: cybersickness mitigation, developing VR applications to understand and address implicit and explicit bias, and the development and use of VR technology in support of psychiatric, cardiac, dosimetric and other medical applications. She is a recipient of the 2020 IEEE VGTC Virtual Reality Career Award for her lifelong contributions to the fields of virtual reality and visualization.
	Jacquelyn Ford Morie, All These Worlds, LLC
Title: Making Room for AI in XR: What to expect Abstract: What will be the role of AI in our quickly evolving fields of XR? From smart NPCs to intelligent tutors for training, we can expect a wide range of AI applications to start populating our immersive creations. We should be considering both the benefits and the pitfalls we will encounter as they become commonplace. Bio: Dr. Jacquelyn Ford Morie is widely known for using technology such as Virtual Reality (VR) to deliver meaningful experiences that enrich people's lives. Starting in 1990, she developed multi-sensory techniques for VR that predictably elicit emotional responses from participants, for example inventing a scent collar that can deliver aromas to a participant within an immersive experience. She is also active in social VR spaces and through her company All These Worlds, LLC, has been bringing her techniques to these worlds for Mindfulness applications, storytelling and stress relief. Along with SIFT (Smart Information Flow Technologies), she created a virtual world ecosystem called ANSIBLE for NASA that was designed to provide psychological benefits for future astronauts destined to undertake extremely long isolated missions to Mars. Dr. Morie's other research interests include how avatars, identity and play in immersive spaces can positively affect our human nature.
	Philipp Slusallek, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) and Saarland University, Germany
Title: Digital Reality: From AI to Synthetic Data and Back Abstract: AI plays an increasingly important role in our daily lives, including making decision that potentially can harm humans, e.g. in autonomous driving. The ability of an AI system to reliably make accurate decision heavily depends on its ability to "understand" the world around it, even for situations that are highly complex or happen rarely. We propose Digital Reality as a concept that is closely related to AR/VR: We learn accurate (partial) models of the real world using AI in order to then identify and instantiate relevant scenarios (e.g. kid running in front of a car). From these scenarios we generate synthetic input data that can then be used for the training, benchmarking, as well as validation and certification of AI systems. We will discuss the the relationship to AR/VR as well as the specific requirements of this new area of research between graphics, AI, and high-performance computing. Bio: Philipp Slusallek is Scientific Director and member of the executive board at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), where he heads the research area on Agents and Simulated Reality. At Saarland University he has been a professor for Computer Graphics since 1999, a principle investigator at the German Excellence-Cluster on "Multimodal Computing and Interaction" since 2007, and was Director for Research at the Intel Visual Computing Institute 2009-2017. Before coming to Saarland University, he was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Stanford University. He is associate editor of Computer Graphics Forum, a fellow of Eurographics, a member of acatech (German National Academy of Science and Engineering), and a member of the European High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence. In addition, Prof. Slusallek co-founded the European initiative CLAIRE (Confederation of Laboratories for Artificial Intelligence Research in Europe) in 2018. He originally studied physics in Frankfurt and Tuebingen (Diploma/M.Sc.) and got his PhD in Computer Science from Erlangen University. His research covers a wide range of topics including artificial intelligence, simulated/digital reality, real-time realistic graphics, highperformance computing, motion synthesis, novel programming models for CPU/GPU/FPGA, computational science, and others.

Invited speakers (in alphabethical order)

	Mehdi Dastani, Utrecht University, Netherlands
Title: Social and Cognitive Modelling in Artificial Intelligence Abstract: Artificial intelligence is the discipline that pursues the understanding, artificial replication and possible enhancement of human intelligence. Computational models that replicate human intelligence are believed to be essential for improving behavioral realism in XR systems. In this talk, I will discuss some of my ongoing research in the formal modelling and implementation of social and cognitive concepts including norms and emotions. The increasing behavioral realism in XR systems raises social and ethical concerns. I will briefly discuss some possible social and ethical implications of the use of social and cognitive models in XR systems. Bio: Mehdi Dastani is a professor in artificial intelligence and the chair of Intelligent Systems group of the department of Information and Computing Sciences at Utrecht University. His research interests concern theories and applications of autonomous systems and multi-agent systems, in particular specification and programming languages for autonomous agents and multi-agent systems, logics to reason about (multi-)agent specifications and programs, agent-based social simulation, and formal modelling of social and cognitive phenomena such as autonomy, norms, control, responsibility, decision making and emotion.
	Saskia Groenewegen, Ordina
Title: XR Use Cases for Training and Productivity Abstract: Everyone has heard of Beat Saber and Pokemon Go. But beyond gaming, there is a wide array of benefits to be gained from immersive technologies in the areas of training and productivity. Imagine you must maintain a hundred different technical systems and have only three people to do so. Imagine you are working on location, but the data you need is in the back-end system, and your colleague at the other side of the world. Or imagine you want to become better at giving presentations, but fear practicing in front of people. This talk addresses the shift in XR from gaming to business, and presents several use cases where Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality - combined with new technologies like spatial anchors - made learning and working easier, more efficient, and more fun. Bio: Saskia Groenewegen is the principal expert for immersive technologies at Dutch IT provider Ordina, where she heads the VR/AR team. Discovering a love for extended reality early in her studies, she holds two M.Sc. degrees (in computer science and media systems science) and has done Ph.D. research at the Utrecht University game & media tech group. Her past scientific affiliations include the VR & AR groups at Bauhaus-University Weimar, the TU Delft computer graphics group, the virtual environments group at Fraunhofer IMK, Fraunhofer IBMT, and TNO Modelling & Simulation, where her research interests included projection mapping, locomotion in VR, procedural city generation, and virtual humans. As a software architect at Ordina, Saskia loves exploring the many possibilities of new technologies with a diverse group of clients. She is currently a committee member of ACM SIGGRAPH, IEEE AIVR, Future Tech and SIBGRAPI, and organizes the Mixed Reality User Group, Global XR Talks, and the Global XR Bootcamp.

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