The main objective of project HumanAI is to develop accessible, customizable, and understandable multimodal generative AI-based tools for persons with cognitive impairments, promoting their active participation in content generation by these tools. There are two complementary subprojects: HumanAI-LANG, by UC3M, and HumanAI-UI, by UCM. The adaptation of LLMs, particularly generative ones, to the specific requirements and preferences of users with cognitive impairments, will be mostly addressed by the HumanAI-LANG subproject, whereas the HumanAI-UI subproject will focus on ensuring that AI language systems interfaces are accessible and provide an inclusive user experience, with a particular emphasis on cognitive accessibility. Bringing together these two groups in this proposal fosters a bigger team to accomplish project goals, as the adapted LLM models could not be effectively used without the accompanying accessible interfaces specifically designed for users with cognitive impairments, and vice versa. Both teams will work closely together on the proposed use cases for the project.
The HumanAI-UI subproject is developed by researchers from the NIL (Natural Interaction based on Language) group of the School of Computer Science of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. The NIL-UCM team works on the research of language technologies and their application to different domains including, among others, accessibility and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) by applying language generation and analysis techniques for the inclusion of people with disabilities. The application of linguistic technologies to accessibility and inclusion gave rise to the CANTOR project (PID2019-108927RB-I00), which proposes the development of an integrated digital tool capable of using ArtificialIntelligence (AI) technologies to assist people with cognitive impairment, their caregivers and therapists, and the IDiLyCo project (TIN2015-66655-R) whose objective was to facilitate communication and access to digital information for persons with disability that encounter problems when using language to communicate or access said information through the use of text simplification and pictograms. Some of the main results of IDiLyCo was the creation of MeDeC@, a user-centered methodology for the development of computer-based assistive technologies for persons with autism and a set of openly available tools developed in direct contact with end users with cognitive impairments following a User-Centered Design (UCD) approach.
The group has collaborated with many entities related to people with cognitive disabilities such as Confederación Autismo España, Asperger Madrid, Aspace Segovia, and Neurofuturo, among others. To further reinforce this line, Professor Daniel Guasch, from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), and Covadonga Rodrigo, from the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), have joined the research team. Daniel has been the Academic Director of the Accessibility Chair at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia since 2005 and has participated in several projects in the area such as the international project SACCES (Searching on Accessibility) or the national projects Smart Inclusive University, UNIMEN or INUDIS. Covadonga has been the Academic Director of the Research Chair of Digital Inclusion at the UNED for the period 2013-2018 and has participated in several projects in the area such as the European Erasmus+ projects Inclusive Museums and SPEKTRUM for users with ASD, and one national competitive funded by the Community of Madrid called MUSACCES. Daniel joins the NIL-UCM team to contribute his experience in the areas of accessibility, Universal Design and the inclusion of people with disabilities, and Covadonga her experience in Universal Design for Learning, usability acceptance models and the evaluation of prototypes with users with disabilities. Their scope of action will focus on methodological and practical aspects directly related to people with intellectual disabilities, in a complementary manner to the rest of NIL-UCM team.