We are launching a new course on Conversational AI & Voice Interaction at Aalto University in the Department of Computer Science, co-taught with my postdocs Sunok Lee, Fedor Vitiugin, and doctoral researcher Silas Rech. Public course blog: aaltovai.wordpress.com
As an interdisciplinary graduate seminar it introduces principles, techniques, and methods for designing, prototyping, and evaluating systems using conversational AI and/ or voice interaction. Such systems may leverage Natural Language Processing (NLP), dialogue modeling, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), generative AI, speech recognition, and synthesis.
Students gain an understanding of applying these methods through critical literature in the field, domain-specific case studies, and hands-on tutorials for project-based learning, participatory design, and user experience evaluation. The course will support the design of responsible and ethical conversational AI systems for human-centered interaction in applied domains such as healthcare, customer service, and playful interaction contexts, with diverse users including children, migrants, and people with special needs.
March 21 – June 6, 2024 (12 weeks) with lectures on Thursdays 16:15 – 18:00.
The course is only offered in-person at Aalto University, though students at other Finnish universities should be able to register for it. We welcome students & industry practitioners from diverse disciplines including science/engineering, business, arts/design, architecture, humanities and social sciences. Most of the course content will also be made open access where possible.
The course will leverage and contribute in many ways to our ongoing work in the Trust M consortia research project with Tampere University, University of Helsinki and the City of Espoo.
Nitin Sawhney 