On November 10th, INESC ID was part of Técnico Taguspark Open Day 2023, joining the celebration of its 23rd anniversary. The annual event organized by the Técnico Campus in Oeiras, welcomes the community, offering an opportunity for all to explore the institution’s labs and gain insights into Técnico’s research through lectures, scientific experiments, and demonstrations.

INESC ID contributed to the occasion by participating in three distinct activities throughout the day. In the morning, INESC ID researcher Ana Paiva hosted the Lecture “The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Society”, a talk addressed to a broad audience explaining the most common threats associated to the use of Artificial intelligence, its impact on the society and future opportunities & challenges.

In the main Hall, Luísa Coheur, INESC ID researcher at the Human Language Technology Lab (HTL) and Associate Professor at Técnico, organized the demonstration “Human Language Technologies to explain how large language models, like ChatGPT and GPT-4, can create highly customized dialogues from information provided by a user. The demo also counted on two Ph.D. candidates from INESC ID and from the HTL lab, Gonçalo Raposo and John Mendonça, who is currently conducting is Ph.D. under the CMU Portugal Affiliated Ph.D. Program Initiative.

Throughout the day, the GAIPS LAB (Research Group on AI for People and Society) warmly welcomed visitors, offering them a unique chance to meet robots such as Pepper, ASTRO, and others. Social robots can simulate human-like behaviors, interact with humans, and even give the illusion of life. Under the guidance of INESC ID researcher Ali Kordia, attendees had the opportunity to interact with the robots, who can perform tasks such as playing games with children, dancing, or even support elderly people in daily tasks.  This event provided a distinctive chance for both children and adults to spend time with these amazing robots.

More at Técnico Website.