Pre-Conference Workshop: AI Assistants for Mental Wellbeing

On Monday 3 June, at 4 pm to 5.30 pm, Wico Mulder, assisted by Trine Platou, will host a workshop on AI assistants for mental wellbeing. You can read about it and register here. 
In case you want to have an active contribution e.g. in the form of an announcement of short presentation, please contact us such we can schedule this into the program.
The venue for the workshop is Tecnico, Alameda Campus – Av. Rovisco Pais 1, 1049-001 Lisboa,
After the workshop, we will go join the conference reception together, (venue to be announced).
This workshop welcomes all who are interested in this subject. To register, please send an email to Wico, at wico.mulder@tno.nl with the subject “registration workshop”.

Motivation for the workshop

The workshop aims to explore the potential of AI-based digital assistants in the domain of mental wellbeing, especially for addressing the problem of this among adolescents.

Problem context of mental distress

Mental distress is a major societal and economic challenge that affects many young people, who often face stigma and isolation. The workshop will discuss how digital assistants can help monitor, intervene, and motivate patients, as well as provide beneficial social connection.

Trusted digital assistants

The workshop will also address the topic of trustworthy AI, which is a key requirement for developing and deploying digital assistants in sensitive domains like mental care. During the workshop we will explore together the ethical, social, and technical aspects of designing and using AI agents that can act as tools or companions for humans.

Invitation and organisation

The workshop invites researchers and practitioners from various fields to participate in the discussion and share their related work, position papers, or proposals. 

Workshop content and questions

Some of the questions include: what are the reasons to move toward a digital mental health coach, wow to monitor depression, how to make digital coaches trustworthy, how to balance human and AI roles, how to prevent malicious usage, and how to model complex human-system interactions.

Background relevant AI topics

The workshop will also provide some background information on relevant AI topics, such as human-agent cooperation, learning in a social environment, new paradigm of problem solving, and tandem systems. These topics are related to the challenges and opportunities of developing and using AI agents that can cooperate with humans in complex and dynamic settings.