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Trust, Transparency, and Technology: Psychological Perspectives on Human–Robot Interaction, Virtual Reality, and Generative AI

Trust, Transparency, and Technology: Psychological Perspectives on Human–Robot Interaction, Virtual Reality, and Generative AI

Event Details Title: Trust, Transparency, and Technology: Psychological Perspectives on Human–Robot Interaction, Virtual Reality, and Generative AI Date: Wednesday, 15 April · 2:30 – 4:30pm Location: U7-18 [CIVITAS ex U7], University of Milano-Bicocca Google Meet link: https://meet.google.com/dfj-qioh-gti Abstract: How do people build trust in intelligent systems – and what happens when those systems make mistakes, ... Read more

Balancing Engagement and Mental Health: BiConnect Lab’s Ongoing Mission in the Wake of Landmark Social Media Trials

A Los Angeles jury has recently awarded $6 million in damages, ruling that a social media platform’s algorithms caused a young woman to develop a severe addiction, ultimately harming her mental health. This landmark decision highlights an urgent global reality: we desperately need healthier, more transparent Recommender Systems, alongside interventions that increase users’ online resilience. ... Read more

Auditing, Regulating and Interactively Teaching AI: 3 BiConnect Contributions at AAMAS 2026

We are pleased to announce that three papers from the BiConnect Lab have been accepted at AAMAS 2026, the International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems—one of the leading international venues shaping research on AI interaction, coordination, and decision-making in complex socio-technical environments. As AI algorithms and models become increasingly powerful and embedded in everyday life, the interaction ... Read more

Seminar – From Physiological Signals to Behavior: Multimodal Recognition, BCI, and the Sense of Agency

We are pleased to announce a seminar focusing on the new frontiers of Human-Machine Interaction and physiological monitoring. Our guest speaker will be Sarah Cosentino, Ph.D., Chief Researcher at Araya Research and Visiting Researcher at Waseda University. With a background spanning Italy and Japan (Politecnico di Milano and Waseda University), Dr. Cosentino brings extensive expertise ... Read more

IEEE ICDL 2025 (Prague) Part II: Growing Perspectives in L(M)LS — our full talk

Date: 19 September 2025Event: IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning (ICDL 2025), CTU Prague Following our Part I spotlight/poster on Sept 16, today we delivered our full talk: Talk title: Growing Perspectives: Modelling Embodied Perspective Taking and Inner Narrative Development Using Large Language Models.Authors: Sabrina Patania, Luca Annese, Anna Lambiase, Anita Pellegrini, Tom Foulsham, ... Read more

IEEE ICDL 2025 (Prague) Part I: Robot Learning Theory of Mind through Self-Observation

We’ll be at the 2025 IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning (ICDL), hosted by CTU in Prague on Sept 16–19. What we’re showing Robot Learning Theory of Mind through Self-Observation: Exploiting the Intentions–Beliefs SynergyFrancesca Bianco & Dimitri Ognibene — presented as a spotlight + poster. The short paper distills our approach: teach a robot ... Read more

Who Sees What? Teaching LLMs to Take Another’s Perspective

Can large language models really see through someone else’s eyes—acting, asking, and searching in socially efficient ways—or are they bound to a single, data-driven point of view? This is the question behind “Who Sees What? Structured Thought-Action Sequences for Epistemic Reasoning in LLMs,” presented by Luca Annese (BiConnect Lab, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca) at ... Read more

Podcast Release: Insights from Our Paper “Why am I seeing this?” on Data Skeptic

We recently joined the Data Skeptic episode “Why Am I Seeing This?” to discuss our research on identifying and understanding hidden social-media recommender systems. The conversation walks through our approach, why exposure data is often missing, and what that means for researchers, platforms, and policy. Why this matters Recommenders quietly shape what we see—and what ... Read more

Teaching AI Like an Apprentice — Not a Data Hoover

We’re presenting at ICSR 2025 in Naples on Wednesday, 10 September 2025 (ICSR 2025) TL;DR Instead of feeding models ever-bigger datasets, our new paper shows how to teach AI through structured, dialogic interactions—more like mentoring an apprentice than labeling a mountain of data. In controlled experiments, pedagogical dialogues helped a learner model acquire and apply ... Read more

Announcing our AIxRobotics 2025 workshop: The Extended Self-Agency and Trust in Robotic Avatars

We’re hosting a hands-on, half-day workshop at AIxRobotics 2025 exploring how the sense of agency and trust shape the design and adoption of robotic avatars. Expect a blend of foundations talks, live demos, and a team hack/experiment session using a ROS 2–based platform—open to participants across robotics, HRI, neuroscience, and design. Short paper/poster submissions are ... Read more