The III Meeting of the UMI of ValgrAI highlights Valencian research on Artificial Intelligence applied to health, co-official languages, social communication, productivity improvement, law, ethics, logistics, and public administration.
Elche, May 14, 2024 – The Miguel Hernández University of Elche hosted this morning the III Meeting of the Mixed Research Unit of ValgrAI (UMI) where researchers from all over the Valencian Community reported on the research they are carrying out in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), covering diverse areas such as health, co-official languages, social communication, productivity improvement, law, ethics, logistics, and public administration. These projects are being developed in the five public universities of the Valencian Community, specifically the University of Valencia, Polytechnic University of Valencia, University of Alicante, University of Jaume I, and Miguel Hernández University.
The Vice-Rector for Research and Transfer, Ángel A. Carbonell, welcomed the attendees and highlighted the work of the ValgrAI Foundation as a dynamizer and enhancer of AI research in the Valencian Community. On the other hand, the General Director of ValgrAI, Vicente Botti, and the Managing Director, Ana Cidad, coincided in highlighting the great interest aroused by the III Edition, demonstrating not only the interest of the audience in Artificial Intelligence but also among researchers, who increasingly wish to showcase their research.
José María Azorín from Miguel Hernández University presented research focused on neurofaces to enable people who have lost the ability to walk to regain mobility through exoskeletons. In short, it is a new system, which has already been tested in various hospitals, to control the exoskeleton through neural signals so that it occurs automatically.
Manuel Palomar from the University of Alicante explained “VIVES, Plan of Language Technologies for Valencian“, which is part of the Strategic Project for the Recovery and Economic Transformation (PERTE) of the New Language Economy. This project aims to promote in Spain the new digital economy based on natural language, leveraging the potential of Spanish and co-official languages as a factor for economic growth and international competitiveness in areas such as artificial intelligence, translation, education, cultural production and dissemination, research, and science.
Aaron Pico from the Polytechnic University of Valencia, along with Vicent Botti, demonstrated the strong connection between mental health and Artificial Intelligence. In fact, AI offers numerous tools to improve the accessibility and effectiveness of mental health care. Among the different possibilities offered by AI tools are therapeutic chatbots. These, driven by the advancement of Large Language Models (LLMs), can provide support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. However, these systems must be carefully evaluated to ensure the well-being of the patient, addressing various challenges in their implementation.
In this regard, he pointed out that the key to integrating LLMs in mental health lies in the design of affective agents, since “these agents allow us to have greater control over their behavior, while being able to benefit from the flexibility and capabilities of LLMs.” That is why within the GTI-IA team (VRAIN, UPV), intelligent agents capable of adapting to patients’ emotions and assisting them in regulating their emotions are being designed. For this purpose, a computational model for the planning of emotional regulation strategies has been designed, following the theoretical model and being customizable to each individual, with the aim of improving the well-being of each of them.
Patricio Martínez from the University of Alicante addressed the application of language technologies to mitigate the toxicity of social communication. The research starts from the fact that social networks have become the main source of information for citizens, which has led to a significant loss of control of information by traditional media. This deprofessionalization of communication has brought significant advantages in terms of accessibility to information, but has also generated certain challenges due to the increase in toxicity in the content consumed by the public. Several studies have particularly emphasized concerns about problems associated with misinformation and violence. However, artificial intelligence, especially Natural Language Technologies (PLN), offers the ability to mitigate adverse effects through the detection, prevention, and purification of harmful content. Currently, different works have been developed that address this problem and are framed In this presentation, the projects COOLANG and SocialFairNess, developed by the GPLSI group of the University of Alicante, are mentioned.
Juan Aparicio from the host university focused on resource optimization and productivity improvement. In this presentation, he talked about how Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence techniques are transforming efficiency and productivity measurement in modern organizations, specifically applied to performance evaluation, such as Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and predictive models, methods that allow identifying opportunities to optimize resources and improve operational efficiency.
Specifically, he pointed out that these models, capable of automating routine mental tasks, are replicating the impact that robotics has had on physical processes within organizations, driving a revolution in how companies manage knowledge and improve their productivity.
Lorenzo Cotino and Adrián Palma from the University of Valencia addressed the new EU Artificial Intelligence regulation that regulates the requirements for bringing high-risk AI systems to market to ensure they are safe, transparent, and respectful of rights, as well as safety and health. of people. In this way, they presented the key aspects of the new AI regulation, the high-risk systems that require conformity assessment, what it consists of, who must carry it out, and the challenges faced by the implementation of this regulation and its impact.
Vicente Domingo García and Patrici Clavo from Jaume I University based their presentation on digital ethics and algorithmic democracy, since “algorithmization has become the main response of governmental and corporate governments to the challenges and challenges of our democracies” as explained by Calvo.
In this regard, Vicente Domingo García explained that “social and political bots, especially their generative version, colonize the public sphere with synthetic content that perverts and distorts both reality and public opinion” and before this “virtual twins are exhibited as the most effective way to face participatory disaffection and improve representative democratic systems. And digital platforms and cyberpolitical ecosystems they offer constitute the pillars that sustain the structures of political governance, becoming the current great centers of despotism.”
Andrés Montoyo from the University of Alicante illustrated how the intelligent society can respond to the growing needs in transportation, infrastructure, and health services, in addition to discussing the importance of digitalization in improving public services and personalizing the user experience.
Thus, the main objective of Montoyo’s project focuses on studying and defining a technological framework to provide solutions based on GeoArtificial Intelligence (GeoAI) through the integration of data from Geographic Information Systems (GIS), public sector organizations, census, cadastre, National Institute of Statistics, providers of weather forecasts, social media, opinions of citizens through social networks, among others. This study describes how these data will be integrated and transformed into Digital Entities (DE) to compose a Semantic Data Lake in which real entities coexist and are interrelated with external information. This will contribute to generating the requirements for an ecosystem that can be exploited by organizations of public administrations and third-party Apps oriented to services for citizens.
From ValgrAI, Héctor Calvete and Esther Cerveró, emphasized the research support services of this non-profit foundation and the Artificial Intelligence Innovation Alliance, an innovation community with Artificial Intelligence integrated by researchers, students, and professionals from universities, research centers, companies, and other entities with the aim of promoting cooperation, dissemination, exchange of technology, and positioning of the Valencian innovation system as a reference in international innovation in AI.
