Generative AI platforms and features are permeating many aspects of work. Entrepreneurs from lean economies in particular are well positioned to outsource tasks to generative AI given limited resources. In this paper, we work to address a growing disparity in use of these technologies by building on a four-year partnership with a local entrepreneurial hub dedicated to equity in tech and entrepreneurship. Together, we co-designed an interactive workshops series aimed to onboard local entrepreneurs to generative AI platforms. Alongside four community-driven and iterative workshops with entrepreneurs across five months, we conducted interviews with 15 local entrepreneurs and community providers. We detail the importance of communal and supportive exposure to generative AI tools for local entrepreneurs, scaffolding actionable use (and supporting non-use), demystifying generative AI technologies by Figure 1: We designed an introductory generative AI workshop emphasizing entrepreneurial power, while simultaneously deconstructing series with entrepreneurs and tech providers which centered the veneer of simplicity to address the many operational communal experience, supportive exposure, tangible skills needed for successful application.

Effective feature representations play a critical role in enhancing the performance of text generation models that rely on deep neural networks. However, current approaches suffer from several drawbacks, such as the inability to capture the deep semantics of language and sensitivity to minor input variations, resulting in significant changes in the generated text. In this paper, we present a novel solution to these challenges by employing a mixture of experts, multiple encoders, to offer distinct perspectives on the emotional state of the user's utterance while simultaneously enhancing performance. We propose an end-to-end model architecture called ASEM that performs emotion analysis on top of sentiment analysis for open-domain chatbots, enabling the generation of empathetic responses that are fluent and relevant. In contrast to traditional attention mechanisms, the proposed model employs a specialized attention strategy that uniquely zeroes in on sentiment and emotion nuances within the user's utterance. This ensures the generation of context-rich representations tailored to the underlying emotional tone and sentiment intricacies of the text. Our approach outperforms existing methods for generating empathetic embeddings, providing empathetic and diverse responses. The performance of our proposed model significantly exceeds that of existing models, enhancing emotion detection accuracy by 6.2% and lexical diversity by 1.4%.

In the arid tech sphere of semiconductor manufacturing, one hardback book-sized processor stands out: Nvidia's H-100. On Friday, the Santa Clara, California, company surpassed 2tn in valuation. Where it goes next will be down to a chip named after "Amazing Grace" Hopper, a US navy rear admiral who became instrumental in the development of design and implementation of programming languages. Nvidia supplies approximately 80% of the global market in chips used in AI applications. The company's H-100 chips – the H is for Hopper – are now so valuable they have to be transported by armored car, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, and demand is so great that some customers are waiting as long as six months to receive it.

Large language models (LLMs) have facilitated significant strides in generating conversational agents, enabling seamless, contextually relevant dialogues across diverse topics. However, the existing LLM-driven conversational agents have fixed personalities and functionalities, limiting their adaptability to individual user needs. Creating personalized agent personas with distinct expertise or traits can address this issue. Nonetheless, we lack knowledge of how people customize and interact with agent personas. In this research, we investigated how users customize agent personas and their impact on interaction quality, diversity, and dynamics. To this end, we developed CloChat, an interface supporting easy and accurate customization of agent personas in LLMs. We conducted a study comparing how participants interact with CloChat and ChatGPT. The results indicate that participants formed emotional bonds with the customized agents, engaged in more dynamic dialogues, and showed interest in sustaining interactions. These findings contribute to design implications for future systems with conversational agents using LLMs.

Successful entrainment during collaboration positively affects trust, willingness to collaborate, and likeability towards collaborators. In this paper, we present a mixed-method study to investigate characteristics of successful entrainment leading to pair and group-based synchronisation. Drawing inspiration from industrial settings, we designed a fast-paced, short-cycle repetitive task. Using motion tracking, we investigated entrainment in both dyadic and triadic task completion. Furthermore, we utilise audio-video recordings and semi-structured interviews to contextualise participants' experiences. This paper contributes to the Human-Computer/Robot Interaction (HCI/HRI) literature using a human-centred approach to identify characteristics of entrainment during pair- and group-based collaboration. We present five characteristics related to successful entrainment. These are related to the occurrence of entrainment, leader-follower patterns, interpersonal communication, the importance of the point-of-assembly, and the value of acoustic feedback. Finally, we present three design considerations for future research and design on collaboration with robots.

A number of prestigious awards were announced shortly before the start of AAAI 2024, and will be officially presented during an awards ceremony at the conference, on 24 February. Some of the winners will also be giving invited talks as part of the programme. The AAAI Award for Artificial Intelligence for the Benefit of Humanity recognises the positive impacts of artificial intelligence to protect, enhance, and improve human life in meaningful ways with long-lived effects. The winner of this year's award is Milind Tambe (Harvard University/Google Research). Milind has been recognised for "ground-breaking applications of novel AI techniques to public safety and security, conservation, and public health, benefiting humanity on an international scale".

Retrieval-augmented language models (RALMs) have demonstrated significant potential in refining and expanding their internal memory by retrieving evidence from external sources. However, RALMs will inevitably encounter knowledge conflicts when integrating their internal memory with external sources. Knowledge conflicts can ensnare RALMs in a tug-of-war between knowledge, limiting their practical applicability. In this paper, we focus on exploring and resolving knowledge conflicts in RALMs. First, we present an evaluation framework for assessing knowledge conflicts across various dimensions. Then, we investigate the behavior and preference of RALMs from the following two perspectives: (1) Conflicts between internal memory and external sources: We find that stronger RALMs emerge with the Dunning-Kruger effect, persistently favoring their faulty internal memory even when correct evidence is provided. Besides, RALMs exhibit an availability bias towards common knowledge; (2) Conflicts between truthful, irrelevant and misleading evidence: We reveal that RALMs follow the principle of majority rule, leaning towards placing trust in evidence that appears more frequently. Moreover, we find that RALMs exhibit confirmation bias, and are more willing to choose evidence that is consistent with their internal memory. To solve the challenge of knowledge conflicts, we propose a method called Conflict-Disentangle Contrastive Decoding (CD2) to better calibrate the model's confidence. Experimental results demonstrate that our CD2 can effectively resolve knowledge conflicts in RALMs.

Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) has introduced a new paradigm for Large Language Models (LLMs), aiding in the resolution of knowledge-intensive tasks. However, current RAG models position LLMs as passive knowledge receptors, thereby restricting their capacity for learning and comprehending external knowledge. In this paper, we present ActiveRAG, an innovative RAG framework that shifts from passive knowledge acquisition to an active learning mechanism. This approach utilizes the Knowledge Construction mechanism to develop a deeper understanding of external knowledge by associating it with previously acquired or memorized knowledge. Subsequently, it designs the Cognitive Nexus mechanism to incorporate the outcomes from both chains of thought and knowledge construction, thereby calibrating the intrinsic cognition of LLMs. Our experimental results demonstrate that ActiveRAG surpasses previous RAG models, achieving a 5% improvement on question-answering datasets. All data and codes are available at https://github.com/OpenMatch/ActiveRAG.

The AAAI/SIGAI Doctoral Consortium provides an opportunity for a group of PhD students to discuss and explore their research interests and career objectives in an interdisciplinary workshop together with a panel of established researchers. This year, 30 students have been selected for this programme, and we'll be hearing from them over the course of the next few months. In this interview, Célian Ringwald, tells us about his work on natural language processing and knowledge graphs. I am a PhD student at the Université Côte d'Azur in Inria, the French Institute in Research in AI. I am part of the Wimmics team, a research group bridging formal semantics and social semantics on the web.

In-car Voice Assistants (VAs) play an increasingly critical role in automotive user interface design. However, existing VAs primarily perform simple 'query-answer' tasks, limiting their ability to sustain drivers' long-term attention. In this study, we investigate the effectiveness of an in-car Robot Assistant (RA) that offers functionalities beyond voice interaction. We aim to answer the question: How does the presence of a social robot impact user experience in real driving scenarios? Our study begins with a user survey to understand perspectives on in-car VAs and their influence on driving experiences. We then conduct non-driving and on-road experiments with selected participants to assess user experiences with an RA. Additionally, we conduct subjective ratings to evaluate user perceptions of the RA's personality, which is crucial for robot design. We also explore potential concerns regarding ethical risks. Finally, we provide a comprehensive discussion and recommendations for the future development of in-car RAs.