Tag: Artificial Intelligence

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A Virtual Buddy for Inmates

Inmates in Swiss correctional facilities have only limited access to digital technologies and little contact with the outside world. At the same time, they spend several hours each day in their cells. The project “Chatbots for Inmates” (short title) aims to address this situation: an LLM-based chatbot is intended to serve as a virtual buddy that enables conversations, reduces loneliness, and strengthens social and digital skills. The project was initiated by Tamara Siegmann, founder of the start-up SIEG – Smart Innovation Engineering Group by Siegmann and a student at the FHNW School of Business. She serves as project leader; Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel is responsible for the project, and Stephan Vonschallen is a project collaborator. The application partner is Lenzburg Prison (JVA Lenzburg), represented by its director Marcel Ruf. The chatbot will run offline on tablets used by the inmates. In a pilot phase, the solution will initially be tested on two or three tablets and later on 30 tablets. The project will investigate whether a digital conversational partner can improve inmates’ well-being and support them in developing skills for life after release. The project began on March 1, 2026, and is supported by an innovation voucher (Innoscheck) from Innosuisse as well as by the Institute for Information Systems at the FHNW School of Business. Back in 2024, Tamara Siegmann and Oliver Bendel carried out a project on Swiss prisons, investigating whether collaborative and social robots could and should be used there. The paper can be downloaded or purchased here (Photo: Boehlich, Wikimedia, CC0 1.0 Universal).

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WhereIsIt: An Object-Location Reminder

Blind and severely visually impaired people depend in everyday life on systematically placing objects or remembering their location. Because visual control is lacking, everyday items such as keys, medication, documents, or technical aids are often misplaced or must be searched for with considerable effort. This leads to loss of time, stress, and unnecessary dependence on other people. Existing solutions such as Microsoft’s “Find My Things” often rely on visual object recognition or complex assistance systems. These are technically demanding, prone to errors, energy-intensive, and not always acceptable from a privacy perspective. What is needed is a simple, robust, and practical solution for everyday use that does not require continuous camera usage and can be operated intuitively. A speech-based object reminder assistant called WhereIsIt is being developed on the initiative of Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel. The user can use voice input to record which object has been placed where (e.g., “I put my medication on the kitchen table”). The information is stored locally and provided with a timestamp. When asked later (“Where is my medication?”), the system outputs the last known location via speech. Optionally, inexpensive Bluetooth tags can be used that emit an additional acoustic signal to make the object physically easier to locate. The focus is on ease of use, low technical complexity, and high reliability. Possible technical components include: voice capture and speech recognition; extraction of object and location information; local data storage with time reference; voice-based feedback; optional integration of BLE tags. When AI components are used, it is a project within Inclusive AI. The kick-off meeting will take place on March 17, 2026 at the FHNW School of Business. Damian Huckele has been recruited to implement the project.

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The ECHO Project has Come to an End

The project “ECHO: Explaining Composition, Harmony & Orchestration” was initiated by Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel and implemented by Lucas Chingis Marty. The final presentation took place on February 19, 2026, at the FHNW Campus Brugg-Windisch. The bachelor’s thesis “ECHO: Explaining Composition, Harmony & Orchestration – A Multimodal AI System for Music Analysis and Education” develops a local multimodal AI system for the analysis and accessible explanation of musical structures based on audio data. The objective is to bridge the gap between music information retrieval (MIR, an automatic audio analysis) and natural language explanation through large language models. The system combines multiple analysis components (tempo, key, chord, instrument, and melody recognition) with a locally operated language model (Llama 3.1-8B) that translates the extracted data into understandable explanations for beginners and intermediate users. Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), guardrails to reduce hallucinations, and a feedback and evaluation system are employed as part of the approach. The implementation is realized as a desktop application without cloud dependency. The evaluation includes technical measurements on datasets comprising several hundred music tracks as well as a small user study. The thesis demonstrates that a locally operated system can in principle present musical analysis in an understandable way, although clear accuracy limitations of the applied MIR methods remain. Opportunities could open up not only for music education, but also for the preservation of endangered music.

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AI and Human Creativity

As part of the AAAI Spring Symposia, the symposium “Will AI Light Up Human Creativity or Replace It?: Toward Well-Being AI for co-evolving human and machine intelligence” focuses on how advances in generative AI, large language models, and multi-agent systems are transforming human creativity and decision-making. It addresses the central question of whether AI will amplify human potential or increasingly take its place. The symposium advances the idea of Well-Being AI, emphasizing human-AI collaboration and co-evolution rather than AI as an isolated or autonomous system. While highlighting the potential of AI to support creativity, discovery, and personal development, it also examines risks such as overreliance, reduced diversity of thought, and loss of human autonomy. Chaired by Takashi Kido (see photo) of Teikyo University and Keiki Takadama of The University of Tokyo, the symposium brings together researchers and practitioners from technical, philosophical, and social disciplines to discuss principles and frameworks for AI that augments rather than replaces human creativity. Further information on this symposium and the broader AAAI Spring Symposia organized by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence can be found at https://aaai.org/conference/spring-symposia/sss26/ and webpark2506.sakura.ne.jp/aaai/sss26-will-ai-light-up-human-creativity-or-replace-it/.

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Towards Inclusive AI and Inclusive Robotics

The article “Wearable Social Robots for the Disabled and Impaired” by Oliver Bendel was published on December 23, 2025. It is part of the volume “Social Robotics + AI: 17th International Conference, ICSR+AI 2025, Naples, Italy, September 10–12, 2025, Proceedings, Part III.” From the abstract: “Wearable social robots can be found on a chain around the neck, on clothing, or in a shirt or jacket pocket. Due to their constant availability and responsiveness, they can support the disabled and impaired in a variety of ways and improve their lives. This article first identifies and summarizes robotic and artificial intelligence functions of wearable social robots. It then derives and categorizes areas of application. Following this, the opportunities and risks, such as those relating to privacy and intimacy, are highlighted. Overall, it emerges that wearable social robots can be useful for this group, for example, by providing care and information anywhere and at any time. However, significant improvements are still needed to overcome existing shortcomings.” The technology philosopher presented the paper on September 12, 2025, in Naples. It can be downloaded from link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-95-2398-6_8.

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About Authentic Laughter

From November 2025 to February 2026, Sahan Hatemo of the FHNW School of Computer Science, Dr. Katharina Kühne of the University of Potsdam, and Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel of the FHNW School of Business are conducting a research study. As part of this project, they are launching a sub-study that includes a short computer-based task and a brief questionnaire. Participants are asked to listen to a series of laughter samples and evaluate whether each one sounds authentic or not. The task involves 50 samples in total and typically takes about ten minutes to complete. Participation is possible via PC, laptop, or smartphone. Before starting, participants should ensure that their device’s sound is turned on and that they are in a quiet, distraction-free environment. The computer-based task and the brief questionnaire can be accessed at research.sc/participant/login/dynamic/3BE7321C-B5FD-4C4B-AF29-9A435EC39944.

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SEX NOW

The exhibition “SEX NOW” will take place from September 5, 2025, to May 3, 2026, at the NRW-Forum Düsseldorf. According to the website, “Sex can be beautiful, exciting, provocative, and political”. “With the exhibition SEX NOW, we invite visitors to rediscover sexuality in all its complexity. A central starting point of the exhibition is the observation that the sex industry has shifted in recent years from a predominantly male-dominated field to one increasingly shaped by women. What are the causes of this transformation? How does this development affect the way sexuality is portrayed in the media and society? What impact does it have on the design and marketing of products and on sexual self-determination?” (Website NRW-Forum, own translation) The exhibition features works by Paul McCarthy, Peaches, Zheng Bo, Tom of Finland, Joëlle Dubois, Poulomi Basu, Miyo van Stenis, Antigoni Tsagkaropoulou, Martin de Crignis, and Melody Melamed, among others. Starting September 11, a Playboy Special Edition will be available. It includes works or contributions by Helmut Newton, Erika Lust, and Ana Dias, as well as an interview with Oliver Bendel on relationships with chatbots, love dolls, and sex robots. More information is available at www.nrw-forum.de/ausstellungen/sex-now.

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AAAI 2026 Spring Symposium Series

On September 4, 2025, the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) announced the continuation of the AAAI Spring Symposium Series. The symposium will be held from April 7–9, 2026, at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport in Burlingame, California. The call for proposals for the symposium series is available on its website. According to the organizers, proposals are due October 24, 2025, and early submissions are encouraged. “The Spring Symposium Series is an annual set of meetings run in parallel at a common site. It is designed to bring colleagues together in an intimate forum while at the same time providing a significant gathering point for the AI community. The two and one-half day format of the series allows participants to devote considerably more time to feedback and discussion than typical one-day workshops. It is an ideal venue for bringing together new communities in emerging fields.” (AAAI website). As was the case this year, the Spring Symposium Series will once again not be held on the Stanford University campus. For many years, the History Corner served as the traditional venue for the event. Efforts to secure an alternative university location in the Bay Area have been unsuccessful. AAAI should seriously consider returning to Stanford in 2027. Only then can the Spring Symposium Series regain the atmosphere and significance it once enjoyed.

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The DEEP VOICE Project

The DEEP VOICE project will be launched at the FHNW School of Business in early September 2025. It was initiated by Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel. “DEEP VOICE” stands for “Decoding Environmental and Ethological Patterns in Vocal Communication of Cetaceans”. The project aims to decode symbolic forms of communication in animals, especially whales. It is based on the conviction that animal communication should not be interpreted from a human perspective, but understood in the context of the species-specific environment. The focus is therefore on developing an AI model that is trained on the basis of a comprehensive environmental and behavioral model of the respective animal. By integrating bioacoustic data, ecological parameters, and social dynamics, the aim is to create an animal-centered translation approach that allows the identification of meaning carriers in animal vocalizations without distorting them anthropocentrically. The project combines modern AI methods with ethological and ecological foundations and thus aims to contribute to a better understanding of non-human intelligence and communication culture and to animal-computer interaction. Oliver Bendel and his students have so far focused primarily on the body language of domestic and farm animals (The Animal Whisperer Project) and the behavior of domestic (The Robodog Project) and wild animals (VISUAL).

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How Human-Like Should It Be?

The Research Topic “Exploring human-likeness in AI: From perception to ethics and interaction dynamics”, hosted by Frontiers in Cognition, invites submissions on how human-like features in robots and AI systems influence user perception, trust, interaction, and ethical considerations. As AI becomes more integrated into society, anthropomorphic design raises pressing questions: Do human-like traits improve communication and acceptance, or do they lead to unrealistic expectations? What ethical implications arise when machines simulate empathy or emotion? This interdisciplinary call welcomes contributions from fields such as psychology, engineering, philosophy, and education. Submissions may include empirical research, theoretical analysis, reviews, or case studies that explore how human-likeness shapes the way we engage with AI. The deadline for manuscript summaries is September 22, 2025; full manuscripts are due by January 10, 2026. Articles will undergo peer review and are subject to publication fees upon acceptance. Topic editors are Dr. Katharina Kühne (University of Potsdam, Germany) and Prof. Dr. Roger K. Moore (The University of Sheffield, United Kingdom). For full details and submission guidelines, visit: www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/72370/exploring-human-likeness-in-ai-from-perception-to-ethics-and-interaction-dynamics.