Tutorial
Computational Argumentation in the Context of Human-Agent Interaction
Time: from 9:00am to 12:30pm on Saturday 15th December
Place: Room 1007, Murray Building (B58)
Computational Argumentation is an emerging area of research in the domain of Artificial Intelligence. Computational Argumentation provides a mechanism to reason with uncertain and at times incomplete information, and a way of explaining the resulting outcome of the reasoning process. Computational Argumentation can be used to enhance the interaction of humans with Intelligent Agent Based Systems.
The main aim of this tutorial is to provide an initial foundation in the concepts underlying computational argumentation and its relevance and potential applications in the context of Human-agent interaction (HAI). Attendees will gain exposure to the field of computational argumentation with an emphasis on those aspects of the domain that are more readily applicable to Human-Agent Interaction context.
This will be a half day tutorial and a tentative agenda is provided in Table 1. The tutorial will commence with an introductory session to present the tutorial goals and objectives. The tutorial will cover three different topics. Each topic will last for an hour including 10 minutes for Q&A. This tutorial will cover the following topics:
- Topic 1: Introduction to Computational Argumentation
This will cover the basic concepts underlying abstract argumentation, structured argumentation and will introduce argumentation schemes. The tutors for this topic will be Simon Parsons and Nadin Kokciyan. - Topic 2: Dialogue-based Computational Argumentation
This will cover aspects of computational argumentation pertinent to dialogues, introduce dialogue types and protocols. The tutors for this topic will be Nir Oren and Josh Murphy. - Topic 3: Computational Argumentation in the Context of Human-Agent Interaction
This will cover aspects of computational argumentation specific to the context of Human-Agent Interaction such as Trust and Persuasion. This will include examples of such systems (e.g. ArgTrust). The tutors for this topic will be Elizabeth Sklar and Isabel Sassoon.
Level and Prerequisites
Everybody is welcome to attend this tutorial, which will provide introductory information about computational argumentation, which can be a mechanism to enable collaboration between humans and agents.
The materials will be delivered through presentations. Participants are welcome to bring their laptops but this is not a requirement of the workshop. There is no need to install software for this. Printouts can be provided of the slides as well as digital versions.
Tutors’ Bio
Simon Parsons
Simon Parsons is a Professor of Computer Science in the Department of Informatics at King’s College London and Vice-Dean for Technology. He received his PhD from University of London in 1993, and held academic positions at Queen Mary and Westfield College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, City University of New York and University of Liverpool before joining King’s. Simon’s research interests center on autonomous systems, in particular coordination and decision-making, and he has published over 300 papers and written or edited 11 books on these topics. He is co-Editor of Knowledge Engineering Review, and an Editorial Board member for Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems and Argument & Computation.
Elizabeth Sklar
Elizabeth Sklar is a Professor of Robotics, and the Head of the Centre for Robotics Re- search (CoRe) in the Department of Informatics at King’s College London. She received her PhD from Brandeis University (US) in 2000, and subsequently has held academic positions at Columbia University (US), City University of New York (US) and University of Liverpool (UK). She is a former US-UK Fulbright Scholar (2013-14). Dr Sklar’s research interests include human/multi-robot interaction, data-backed decision making and behaviour mining. While in the US, her work was largely funded by the National Science Foundation. She has published over 150 papers in refereed journals, conferences and workshops and has edited two books. She is a founding chair of RoboCupJunior, on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems and on the Board of Directors for the International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multi-agent Systems.
Nir Oren
Nir Oren is a Reader in Computer Science and head of Computing Science at the University of Aberdeen. He has held academic positions at King’s College London and the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa). Nir’s research interests revolve around practical reasoning and explanation of behaviour in multi-agent systems, and he has published over 150 papers on topics such as argumentation, normative reasoning and trust. He is a co-founder of the bi-annual International Workshop on the Theory and Application of Formal Argumentation and the International Competition on Computational Models of Argumentation.
Nadin Kokciyan
Nadin Kokciyan is a Research Associate in the Department of Informatics at King’s College London. Her research interests include ontology engineering, multi-agent systems, and privacy in social software. Her current focus is on making use of argumentation for making and explaining decisions in the context of healthcare. Nadin received a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Bogazici University.
Isabel Sassoon
Isabel Sassoon is a Research Associate and Teaching Fellow in the Department of Informatics at King’s College London. Her research interests are in the field of clinical decision support specifically related to data science and argumentation. Prior to joining King’s College London Isabel worked for more than 10 years as a data science consultant in industry, including 8 years in SAS. Isabel read Statistics, Operations Research and Economics at Tel Aviv University and received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from King’s College London.
Josh Murphy
Josh Murphy is a Lecturer of Computer Science Education in the Department of Informatics at King’s College London. His research interests lay in the area of computational argument- based persuasion. Josh is currently finalising his Ph.D., under the supervision of Dr. Elizabeth Black and Prof. Michael Luck, in which his thesis considers the performance of strategic decision making in dialogue-based argumentation.