Speaker: Hwajung Hong, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of Industrial Design at KAIST

Date: 2024-4-11 12:30 pm

Location: 
Technology Square Research Building (TSRB, 1st Floor Ballroom)
85 Fifth Street NW
Atlanta, GA 30308

ABSTRACT
As AI advances, so does human intelligence and productivity. Yet, AI use has the potential to reduce users' capacity for deliberate decision-making, thereby diminishing their sense of agency. In this talk, I will discuss how AI's core features—prediction, conversation, and generation—can be employed in the field of mental health, a domain where agency is crucial, to support self-reflection and informed decision-making about health activities. My research team conducted a series of studies on examining the design and impact of AI-driven systems that: 1) utilize stress prediction and explainability to empower users in managing stress; 2) employ conversational AI to assist users in reevaluating cognitive biases; and 3) leverage language generation models for fostering self-reflection via cooperative diary writing. The goal of this talk is to provide insights and recommendations for designers, researchers, and practitioners to design AI technologies that are more sensitive to human concerns and behavior to augment human agency within mental health interventions.

BIO
Hwajung Hong is an Associate Professor in the Department of Industrial Design at KAIST, and leads the DxD (Data, Interaction, Design) Lab. She is also an affiliated faculty member of the KAIST AI Institute. Hong's research in human-AI interaction focuses on developing systems for better human-data interaction in diverse settings such as healthcare and education. Her work aims to enhance the ways people interact with and through data and AI, with a particular emphasis on creating inclusive technological experiences for individuals with special needs. She earned her Ph.D. in Human-Centered Computing from Georgia Tech in 2015. Her research and training programs are supported by generous funds from KAIST, NRF, LG and Elice.