[agents] AFOSR Call for Human-Machine Teaming White Papers

Fri Nov 16 09:45:22 EST 2018

Please share with interested colleagues!

Human-Machine Teaming

Request for White Papers

DEADLINE: December 2, 2018

The Air Force Office of Scientific Research is requesting white papers
describing novel interdisciplinary basic research investigations of
human-machine teaming, an important consideration for autonomous systems
development and deployment. White papers should address at least one of the
following three topic areas:

1.       Trust and Verification

2.       Interaction

3.       Communication (Information Sharing)

Trust and Verification

Trust and verification ensure that humans and autonomous systems are
prepared to cooperate and execute actions as expected. AFOSR is interested
in research that quantifies the extent to which humans can trust autonomous
systems and to which autonomous systems can trust humans. Trust is a
combination of authority and responsibility, which are respectively the
ability to make promises and the ability to deliver on them. Trust also
requires that humans and machines understand each other's actions. Proposals
may also explore methods for verifying human and machine behavior and
ensuring that agents complete actions as expected.

Interaction

Autonomous systems are of limited use without a way for humans to interact
with them. Proposed investigations of methods to collaborate with an
autonomous teammate could address interfaces including but not limited to
natural language, gestures, keyboard/touchscreen GUIs, and brain-machine
interfaces with the recognition that DoD-relevant autonomous systems may be
operated in complex environments in which users are vulnerable, have high
attentional demands, and need to avoid producing signals that could reveal
their presence. Augmented reality techniques that provide information from
the machine teammate while maintaining the human's situational awareness are
also of interest. Investigations should also quantify the role of
uncertainty and how humans and machines identify and recover from errors.

Communication (Information Sharing)

Effective communication and information exchange are essential for any team
to function properly. AFOSR is interested in methods for humans to specify
or update the team's goals in real time, machines to explain or justify
their decisions and actions to their human partner(s), and humans and
machines to exchange and fuse information in real time without interrupting
the mission. There is also interest in measuring agreement and resolving
disagreement within a team, conveying plans and intent among team members,
and directing the attention of human or machine partners. Investigations
should quantify the role of uncertainty in communicated information and how
humans and machines identify and recover from corrupted information and
misinformation.

AFOSR anticipates awarding grants of up to $500K per year for up to 3 years
to investigators at US or foreign academic and non-profit organizations
(excluding FFRDCs). White papers are encouraged to include co-investigators
from other disciplines. Authors of selected white papers may be invited to
submit full proposals.

Please email your white paper (approximately 2-5 pages, excluding
references) with CVs for all principal and co-investigators as a single
attachment to Dr. Hal Greenwald at hal.greenwald at us.af.mil
<mailto:hal.greenwald at us.af.mil> .

Hal S. Greenwald, Ph.D.
Program Officer, Cognitive & Computational Neuroscience
Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR/RTA)
875 N. Randolph St.
Arlington, VA 22203-1768
(703) 588-8441

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