About
Hello dear visitor!
I am Alfio Ventura, psychologist (M. Sc.), PhD student and research associate at the Chair for Human Understanding of Algorithms and Machines at the Research Centre for Trustworthy Data Science and Security at the University of Duisburg-Essen.
My research interests are mainly focussed on the interface between humans and technology. I am particularly interested in human-machine interaction with technical systems that have or will have a major impact on our everyday living environment and life reality. Among others, this includes various types of AI systems, autonomous driving, extended reality and (social) robotics in the context of social interaction, social health, new work, Industry 4.0, medicine and all other areas of life in which technical changes are coming our way.
I completed my M. Sc. in Psychology with a focus on technology and economics at the Johannes Kepler University Linz (Austria) and during my studies I worked as a student assistant and working student in various areas with a focus on technology and media psychology, social psychology, (experimental) methodology and communication. In addition to my psychology studies, I have seized fundamental knowledge and experience in the actual implementation and application of technical systems (e.g., sensory systems, web applications, VR applications, AI and robotics) for research purposes. Now I am looking forward to using my acquired knowledge, understanding and experience to help research, design and implement technical innovations in a human-centred way and thus achieve social value.
My current research projects deal with various related topics:
- Synthetic Relationships and Companionship Agents: What are the long-term opportunities and risks of AI-driven companionship agents for human experience and behaviour? Specifically, I focus on opportunities of AI companionship agents for social health (development of social relationships, wellbeing, social belongingness and loneliness; Sustainable Development Goal 3).
Our research goal are twofold: On the one hand, we are tackling the topic of ‘synthetic relationships’ on a theoretical level with a position paper that will define this term in more detail and formally establish it as a field of research.. On the other hand, we aim to to build an open source research platform for companionship agents that allows us to identify long-term relations between the use of companionship agents and social health. - Prompting Large Language Models: Especially with the boom around ChatGPT at the end of 2022, various opportunities for new study designs and research questions were opened up. Two new research questions deal with (1) which biases can be found in the responses of large language models and (2) how such prompting studies can be conducted best. By replicating an early prompting study on the political ideology of large language models, we aim to (1) replicate previous findings and (2) discuss methodological standards for prompting studies.
- Explainable AI: To what extent does the communication of model limitations (weaknesses of a technical system) support the development of calibrated trust(worthiness) perception?
- Development of Ocean Literary in Virtual Reality (VR): Explorative experiments on the extent to which ocean literacy can be improved with existing VR applications effectively and long-term in order to promote sustainable behaviour (Sustainable Development Goal 14).
For more information about me and my background, please visit my LinkedIn page.
For any enquiries, please feel free to contact me via email.
