[iva] Call far Participation: Frontiers Research Topic "Towards Omnipresent and Smart Speech Assistants"

[Ingo Siegert]

The functionality of digital voice assistant systems is constantly
growing. The attractiveness of such devices is based on their ease of
use as they allow to conduct online searches and orders as well as smart
home services by simply calling up the device.

However, the implications of voice-based interaction are not always
clear to the user, especially since today's voice assistants are
sometimes only better remote controls. In future, however, they should
not only process simple commands, but also enable a natural and smooth
interaction and be omnipresent. In addition to an improved speech
recognition, this will require enhanced speech understanding and more
intelligent dialog guidance.

While state-of-the art systems are mainly conceptualized for young
adults and middle-aged people, future systems should adapt to the user
in order to meet the needs of different (vulnerable) user groups ranging
from young children to the elderly. This will be accompanied by efforts
to make systems more understandable and users more sophisticated.
Consequently, legal aspects resulting from the spread of voice
assistants and the stricter data protection regulations are important.

The goal of this Research Topic is to present the latest advances - both
from academia and industry - in the area of voice assistants. We aim at
bringing together researchers from the disciplines of human-computer
interaction, artificial intelligence, and human factors in order to
promote interdisciplinary collaborations and cross-fertilization of
ideas. More specifically, we are interested in exploring the current
landscape and future directions for the emerging topic of voice assistants.

This Research Topic provides an opportunity for scholars and researchers
to contribute original research articles as well as review articles that
will stimulate the continuing effort on the development of future voice
assistants.

In addition to methodological and theoretical contributions, we welcome
practical applications at the intersection of artificial intelligence,
human-computer interaction, and human factors. Topics of interest
include, but are not limited to the following:

• Applications of voice assistants
• Improvements in dialog handling and dialog management
• Intelligent feedback and turn-taking technologies
• “In the wild” studies of voice assistants
• ubiquitous computing and omnipresent voice assistants
• Reliability of modern voice assistants
• Multi-party interactions – Current state and future directions
• Aspects of perceived quality and user experience
• Coping with uncertainty of voice understanding
• Incorporation of additional speech-based user characteristics
• Techniques enabling (automatic) learning
• Explainable AI – Explain Explainable AI
• Security issues – misbehavior, breaches and possible solutions
• Ethical issues and persuasive interfaces
• Privacy issues and their implications
• Methods to measure and improve acceptance of speech assistants

Manuscript Deadline:
24-March 2021


YES - I would like to participate:
https://research-topic-management-app.frontiersin.org/manage/contributor-confirms-participation?activationkey=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000

Topic Editors:
 Dr. Ingo Siegert, Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, Magdeburg,
Germany
 Dr. Stefan Hillmann, Quality and Usability Lab, Institute for Software
Technology and Theoretical Computer Science, Faculty of Electrical
Engineering and Computer Science, Technical University Berlin, Berlin,
Germany
 Dr. Benjamin Weiss, Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea
 Dr. Jessica Martina Szczuka, University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg,
Germany
 Dr. Alexey Karpov, St. Petersburg Institute for Informatics and
Automation of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SPIIRAS), St. Petersburg,
Russia

Visit the homepage for this Research Topic for a full description of the
project:https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/16346


The submission deadline for this Research Topic is 24 March 2021.


I look forward to your response.

Kind Regards,

Ingo Siegert
Topic Editor,
Human-Media Interaction Section, Frontiers in Computer Science

On behalf of the Topic Editors.


-- 
Jun.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ingo Siegert
FEIT IIKT-Mobile Dialog Systems
Building 03, Room 323
Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg
Universitätsplatz 2, 39106 Magdeburg Germany
Phone: +49 391 - 67 50060
E-mail: ingo.siegert at ovgu.de