Human-Aware Planning

Abstract

The HAP 2014 workshop provides an international forum for researchers interested in Human-Aware Planning, for instance applied to joint human-agent/robot activities or human-agent/robot interaction addressing the challenges of future teamwork scenarios that are more complex and incorporate agent, robots and humans in a closed loop. 
HAP is an evolving branch of AI planning systems due to the progressive integration of AI in our human daily life. HAP is mainly required when the situation involves artificial and natural agents in the same environment, the actions of the artificial agents being planned and those of the natural agents being predicted only. We find such situations in collaborative application areas like Smart Homes inhabited by agents, robots and humans, e.g., when addressing the ageing of the population with socially assistive robotics. Joint human-agent activities can be seen as an extended set of actions that is executed by an ensemble of natural and artificial agents who are coordinating with each other: the artificial and natural agents have to work together in close and relatively continuous interaction. Making artificial agents a constituent part of human activities leads us to more affiliated teamwork scenarios at the one hand, but also introduces several new challenges on the other. These challenges comprise among others examining accurate models of teamwork and flexible techniques for distributed decision making including planning with and/or for humans. 
This workshop aims to tackle the challenges of planning associated with the complex nature of humans (e.g. dynamicity, non-determinism, social rules). The main purpose is to explore planning-theories, -methods, and -approaches that support teams of humans, agents and/or robots working together. Application papers that combine findings from artificial planning, cognitive science, social and organizational psychology and human-agent interaction are strongly encouraged.