Yorick Wilks is a Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Sheffield. He received his MA and PhD (1968) from Pembroke College, Cambridge. He has also taught or researched at Stanford, Edinburgh, Geneva, Essex and New Mexico State Universities. His interests are artificial intelligence and the computer processing of language, knowledge and belief, especially as applied to the future of the Internet: the Semantic Web and the possibility of Companion-like interfaces.
His recent books include: Natural language Processing and the Semantic Web (with Christopher Brewster, Now Books, 2009), Machine Translation – how far can it go (Springer, 2009), Artificial Believers (Erlbaum 1991), Electric Words (MIT, 1996) and Machine Conversations (Kluwer, 2001), and a new edited volume in 2009 from John Benjamins is: ‘Artificial Companions in Society: scientific, economic, psychological and philosophical perspectives’. He is a Research Fellow of the Centre for Policy Studies.
Artificial companions, Semantic Web, artificial intelligence, computer processing of language, knowledge and belief.
By Yorick Wilks (Editor)
What will it be like to admit Artificial Companions into our society? This book from the 'Companions' project explores both the technical construction of conversational software agents, and their personal, philosophical and social consequences.
This project aims to evaluate the feasibility of a computer-based digital tool to help adults whose engagement with learning is tentative or hard to sustain make productive use of the Internet for achieving their own learning projects.
This project developed a virtual conversational 'Companion': an agent that stays with the user for long periods of time, develops a relationship and 'knows' owners' preferences and wishes, communicating primarily by using and understanding speech.
Establishing networks of researchers from different technical and social science research disciplines to begin to develop a Web Science research agenda through the exchange of PhD students and collaborative workshops.
15 February 2007
Professor Yorick Wilks joins the OII as a Senior Research Fellow. His research interests include artificial intelligence and the computer processing of language, knowledge and belief.
