Open PhD Tutorial on Adjustable Autonomy and Physical Embodied Intelligence

Regulating autonomy of AI systems is a crucial challenge in AI, especially in contexts where the systems are immersed in and interact with human society. In these cases, the systems need the ability to operate and learn autonomously, while understanding when their decisions are unsafe, questionable or unethical, and thus human supervision is required. Since situations are more and more frequent where systems exhibiting a high degree of autonomy are embodied into physical devices, such as robots, this form of adjustable autonomy also needs to take into account the specificities of the devices where the systems are physically embodied. In order to unify these two perspectives, scientific foundations, techniques, and tools for adjustable autonomy need to be devised, so as to equip software and/or physical AI systems with the required abilities to operate and learn in human environments, while being fully integrated in the environment and trustworthy.

The objective of this open PhD tutorial is to provide an overview of the recent advances in the area, to Ph.D. students and researchers interested in investigating all the aspects of combining Adjustable Autonomy and Physical Embodied Intelligence. 

The format is that of short (~45mins) lectures on selected topics. We will also offer Ph.D. students the opportunity to present in a poster session their research results in the area.