Research will focus on areas of human-AI collaborative problem-solving, AI ethics and society, AI education and AI for education, trust between human and AI, and persuasive AI.
The USC Institute for Creative Technologies, a unit of USC Viterbi, and Department of Defense (DoD) University Affiliated Research Center (UARC), sponsored by the US Army, is pleased to announce the launch of the Human-Centered AI Lab, led by Dr. Ning Wang as Director.
The Human-Centered AI Lab will conduct research in the area of human-AI collaborative problem-solving, AI ethics and society, AI education and AI for education, trust between human and AI, and persuasive AI.
Current and previous projects include:
- Building Basic AI Competency for All: Centers around the idea of our trust in AI through education, the project researches AI education accessible for novice learners, who make up the majority of users and implementers of AI. The project develops an educational game, Becoming Fei (formerly known as “Age of AI”), that focuses on basic AI concepts in data science.
- AI behind Virtual Humans: An AI-driven interactive Virtual Human Exhibit to engage the public, particularly young children and their caregivers, in experiencing and learning about AI. Supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant 2116109, the exhibit is open to the public at the Lawrence Hall of Science from November 2023 to May 2025.
- Problem-solving with Probabilistic AI: The project develops an educational game, The 7th Patient, to guide high school students in learning probability and AI through problem-solving, such as making medical diagnosis. After a successful pilot with over 1000 students in Spring 2024, the full game will be released in Q2 2025.
- Explainable AI for Education: The project developed ARIN-561, an educational game to help high school students develop an understanding of AI. Supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant 1842385, the game won Student Choice Award at the I/ITSEC Serious Games Summit and was awarded Best Paper at HCI International in 2023.
- Transparency Communication for human-robot teams: This long range research initiative developed human-robot teaming testbeds and algorithms for automated explanation generation for probabilistic AI models and reinforcement learning. In collaboration with researchers at the Army Research Laboratory, the project investigated the impact of explainable AI on human-robot team performances.
Dr. Ning Wang is a Research Scientist and Director of the Human-Centered AI Lab at ICT, and also holds a position as Research Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. She first worked at ICT from 2007 – 2010 as a Computer Scientist, then became an Assistant Research Professor at Arizona State University, before returning to ICT in 2014.
Dr. Wang graduated from Hunan University with a B.S. in Computer Science and Technology, received her M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Southern California (USC), and was awarded her PhD on computational social intelligence in pedagogical agents from the USC Information Sciences Institute (ISI). She has published 93 academic papers, including Best Paper Award winners at HCII 2023, ACII 2009, and Most Cited Paper Award winner from International Journal of Human-Computer Studies.
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Established in 1999, the USC Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) is a Department of Defense (DoD) University Affiliated Research Center (UARC), sponsored by the US Army. Harnessing Hollywood-derived creativity with academic innovation and military-domain expertise, ICT conducts award-winning R&D in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Computer Graphics, Geospatial Sciences, Human Performance, Learning Sciences, Modeling, Simulation & Gaming, Mixed Reality (MxR), Medical VR, Narrative, and Virtual Humans. ICT accomplishments include: 2,000 Peer-Reviewed Publications with 100,000+ Citations; 140+ Honors and Awards Highlighting Faculty and Staff; 49 Hollywood Movies/Series use ICT Technologies; 278 Intellectual Property Disclosures; 29 Patents; 3 AAAI Fellows and 2 Academy Awards (Science & Technology).
The project or effort depicted was or is sponsored by the U.S. Government and that the content of the information does not necessarily reflect the position or the policy of the Government, and no official endorsement should be inferred.
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