Metaverse and Conversational Interaction

In the Metaverse (social VR), which has been in the limelight in recent years, there is a tendency to focus on various experiences that cannot be done in reality, but it is no exaggeration to say that the most important activity that actually takes place is communication between participants, that is, dialogue.

A feature and strength of conversational interaction in the Metaverse is the physicality, or embodiment, of each participant’s avatar. On the other hand, avatar movement, position, and posture control are restricted by reality (operation interfaces), which paradoxically creates a barrier between participants that is larger than reality. At first glance, the virtual reality space appears to be a barrier-free world, but in fact it is not. We conduct technology and human research to realize a world in which everyone can communicate with anyone in the Metaverse without stress, overcoming a wide variety of physical and environmental constraints and individual preferences in collaboration with Assoc. Prof. Hasegawa and Yoshimura, also at our FIRST laboratory, and with external sociological researchers.

Ultimately, we plan to connect this to research on dialogue technology so that people can cooperate with AI agents that will be active in the Metaverse with peace of mind and trust.

References

[1] 東工大ニュース: 未来を実現するための研究支援「DLab Challenge 2022」に3研究を採択 2022.8.9 https://www.titech.ac.jp/news/2022/064672

[2] 長谷川: “近接チャットとHMD VRによるメタバースの相違点”, バーチャル学会2022 (TBA)