The SEMAINE project (Sustained Emotionally coloured Machine-human Interaction using Non-verbal Expression) is a European research effort that started in early 2008.

In a nutshell, it is a stage on the evolutionary ladder towards an artificial intelligence capable of understanding non-vocal communication from a human, and be able to engage in conversation without the need for vocal signals from the human's side.

The goal of the project is something called a Sensitive Artificial Listener, or SAL. SAL, it is hoped, will be a kind of therapeutic listener as well as a human interface model. The hope is SAL will perceive a human user's facial expression, gaze, and voice and then engage with the user. When engaging with a human, the SAL will be able to adapt its own performance and pursue different actions, depending on the non-verbal behaviour of the user.

Results:

Project still underway. No results yet published.

Preceeding Projects:

The HUMAINE Project (Human-Machine Interaction Network on Emotion)
Still Active

Lead Institution:

Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz (DFKI)
German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence

Other Institutions:

Imperial College, London
The University of Paris 8, Paris
University of Twente, Holland
The Technical University of Munich, Germany

Funding:

The European Commission has awarded SEMAINE a grant of €2.75 million

Further Reading

I'm listening -- conversations with computers

Semaine Project