The world around us is inherently physical, yet adaptive interfaces focus mostly on digital content and representations. Physical AI is moving in the right direction by creating models that can understand instructions and perform physical tasks in the real world, typically with humanoid or quadrupedal robots as physical AI agents.
In this talk, I envision a future where such physical AI agents move into the background—instead of interacting with large general-purpose robots, we should interact with physical objects that are familiar to us. I call this *Unobtrusive Physical AI*. Bottles, desks, chairs, walls; any object surrounding us should dynamically adapt to our needs, by not only adjusting their user interfaces to fit the context but also by transforming their physical features, material properties, and affordances to instantly become exactly what users need in that moment.
I will discuss how creating such intelligent agents requires two main components: (1) adaptive physical architectures to facilitate physical change, e.g., through metamaterials, shape-changing interfaces, soft robotics, etc., and (2) sensing and prediction systems to understand when and what functionality users require. With new approaches in predictive user modeling and innovations in manufacturing and material science, the time might just be ripe to make this challenging vision a reality.
Bio: I am an Assistant Professor at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science. I direct the Interactive Structures Lab, where we investigate and develop physical interfaces that adapt to users' needs. My lab’s work is published at and awarded by top-tier HCI (ACM CHI & UIST) and graphics venues (ACM SIGGRAPH) and has been recognized with the prestigious NSF CAREER award. It was showcased in multiple exhibitions, including a permanent exhibition at the Ars Electronica Center in Austria. Our work also captured the interest of media such as Wired, Dezeen, Fast Company, Gizmodo, etc., and presented at TEDx. Before joining CMU, I was a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zurich in Computer Graphics and completed my PhD in HCI at the Hasso Plattner Institute, a small, highly selective, top-tier institute for computer science in Germany.
To request accommodations for a disability please contact Emily Lawrence, emilyl@cs.princeton.edu, at least one week prior to the event.