The Interaction Hour

When Zvi Galil, the outgoing John P. Imlay Jr. Dean of Computing, came to Georgia Tech in 2010, there was no such thing as OMSCS. True online degree programs were still a dream, AI teaching assistants unnecessary, and the College of Computing, while excellent, in many ways mirrored its peers in higher education. Over nearly a decade that he has helmed the College, however, it has experienced dramatic growth both in size and reputation. Due in large part to the Online Master of Science in Computer Science program that Dean Galil spearheaded, computing is now Georgia Tech’s largest major and is also a consensus top-8 computer science program nationally. As he prepares for the final month of his deanship at the College of Computing, we’ll chat today with Dean Galil about what brought him to Georgia Tech, his mission and how he fulfilled it, and, of course, the world-renowned online degree program for which he will be most remembered.

In the late 1990s, the United States saw a sharp increase in the number of opioid overdose deaths – rising by nearly 600 percent between 1999 and 2017, according to data provided by the CDC. It has, appropriately, been labeled an epidemic, and in 2018 the country’s life expectancy dropped for the third consecutive year, reflecting the ongoing drug crisis and rising suicide rates. As researchers and clinicians continue to examine the quality of different approaches to treatment, many seeking recovery have taken matters into their own hands. Our guest, School of Interactive Computing Ph.D. student Stevie Chancellor, will present a paper on this subject next week at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Glasgow, Scotland. What exactly do these addiction support communities entail? What alternative strategies are people pursuing in recovery, and why? How can we ensure that clinicians are well-informed about the types of self-treatments being used outside of their care?

In the late 1990s, Professor Gregory Abowd of Georgia Tech’s School of Interactive Computing developed a tool to allow people to collect and reflect upon memories over a long period of time. Motivated by his father’s collection of 30 years worth of videos, Gregory wanted to create something that assisted in annotating and searching videos to create short memories. Around 2002, he began using this for his own family memories and made a discovery while watching one of the videos. His oldest son, who was then 5 years old and already diagnosed with autism, demonstrated stark differences in behavior and communication between videos at 18 months and others at 26 months. Amazed by what he saw in the videos, Gregory began to consider other more serious applications of this memory-capturing tool. In the coming years, it would become a key research initiative for Gregory and others at Georgia Tech.

Over the years, virtual reality has become a mythical new medium with promises of immersive gaming and enriched experiences. Novels and movies like Ready Player One have teased the potential – and raised the expectations. In many ways, though, the technology is a largely untapped resource for reasons varying from the usability of the equipment to the premium cost.In this episode, however, we’ll hear from former Georgia Tech student Aditya Vishwanath and current Georgia Tech assistant professor Neha Kumar who are examining the potential for virtual reality in education and instruction. What are the affordances of the technology inside of a classroom, and how can issues of cost and access be overcome to ensure it is a truly democratized medium?Note: Inspirit is now piloting a virtual reality curriculum on fostering a civic mindset by teaching ethics and design thinking as an integrated component of a 4-year undergraduate liberal arts degree program. This project is being conducted in partnership with Krea University in Sri City, India, and will be one of the first of many VR higher-ed curricula on social justice themes at scale.Aditya and Neha, along with colleagues Sally Creel and Tamara Pearson will speak on this topic at SXSW EDU at 5 p.m. March 4 in Room 11AB of the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas.

School of Interactive Computing Ph.D. student Kalesha Bullard does research into helping AI gain basic building blocks for how to learn complex tasks. In one example, she describes the goal of packing a lunch box. What are the things that a robot must know in order to complete that task? The size and shape of fruits or beverages? The heigh or circumference of each object? The depth or surface area of the lunch box itself? Taking inspiration from human learners, including her own time as a teacher and student, Bullard offers some input into how these tasks can be achieved.

In most online learning, instructors face challenges in achieving similar levels of effectiveness and retention to their on-campus offerings. With so many students to account for an the inability to meet in person, it’s important to find ways to supplement the interaction between teacher and student. As an instructor for a course in Georgia Tech’s Online Master of Science in Computer Science program, School of Interactive Computing Professor Ashok Goel introduced the world to Jill Watson, a virtual teaching assistant who was so good in her first semester on the job that even students thought she was human. Can AIs like Jill really improve course effectiveness and satisfaction? Will they be used to augment the production of the human assistant, not replace it? And can this method, which has proven successful in an academic setting, be used as a foundation upon which other sectors of the workforce can build?

When it comes to artificial intelligence and automation, there are two common opposing schools of thought: One says that AI is on its way to solve all our problems, work for humans and allow us to perform at peak capacity in our jobs. Another says that it’s on its way to take those jobs from us entirely and leave a substantial part of the population behind. The truth probably lies somewhere between those extremes. Georgia Tech Associate Professor Mark Riedl joins the podcast to help separate fact from fear. Read more at www.ic.gatech.edu/podcasts and follow us on Facebook and Twitter @ICatGT.

Years ago, mothers used to place their hands on their children's foreheads to determine if they had a fever. Thermometers now can provide more precise measurements and, thus, more appropriate health care. Like the thermometer, can we use social media to do the same for mental illness? But what do we risk by opening our social channels to algorithmic observance? Dr. Munmun De Choudhury has spent years investigating what our social media can say about our mental health.

What does a prohibition-era speakeasy have in common with modern-day cybersecurity? How can ancient biblical tales inform our development of such systems? To finally convince mainstream society to adopt good security behaviors in the future, is it imperative that we look, instead to our past? School of Interactive Computing Assistant Professor Sauvik Das thinks so.

The emergence of artificial intelligence in society has elicited visceral reactions from people the world over, many of whom, thanks to portrayals in popular culture, can’t quite decide whether they believe we are building the future – or destroying it. Are we actually dealing with “killer robots?” Why has the public perception become so polarizing? Can we trust algorithms to make appropriate and trustworthy decisions, or do we risk too much by turning power over to the robots? Professor Ron Arkin, an expert in robotics and roboethics joins the podcast to discuss.

On March 18, 2018, a self-driving vehicle in Tempe, Arizona, was involved in a fatal crash that resulted in the death of a pedestrian crossing the street at night. As a result, tests on self-driving cars by the company were suspended in four major cities and the inevitable questions arose: Should human “drivers” be responsible for their autonomous hosts? How do we train self-driving cars to perform risk analysis in real time? Ultimately, are travelers safer with autonomous vehicles on the road?

In the School of Interactive Computing, we are all about – you guessed it – interaction. From investigating the ways in which computing impacts humans on a daily basis -- health care, ethics, national security, and more -- to the way we as a school interact with industry and academic community through our research, we believe we are better for our ability to collaborate and find solutions for life’s big issues. Hear from School Chair Ayanna Howard as she details our goals for this podcast and how you, the listener, can get involved.