Ellie and ICT Researchers in the LA Times

Los Angeles Times featured “ELLIE,” a virtual interviewer that can help diagnose PTSD in veterans through facial and voice analysis. Gale Lucas of the USC Institute for Creative Technologies said that ELLIE has to be “best of both worlds. “She has to be human enough but also look like a machine. If she was just like us, it wouldn’t work.,” she said.
The article noted that Ellie cannot respond to questions. Early in the session, she acknowledges she is “not a therapist” but is there to listen.
“If someone says something terrible, we want them to understand why she isn’t asking them more about it,” said Giota Stratou, a research programmer at the institute.