Augmented Intelligence for Smarter Societies

In an era where the integration of technology and human intelligence defines the boundaries of innovation, the ICTO2024 conference proudly announces its main topic: "Augmented Intelligence for Smarter Societies." This theme underscores the evolving symbiosis between human cognitive capabilities and artificial intelligence (AI), aiming to enhance organizational decision-making processes.

Augmented Intelligence and its implications

Augmented Intelligence represents a paradigm shift from traditional AI applications, focusing on the enhancement of human decision-making through the collaborative efforts of humans and AI systems. This concept transcends the notion of AI as a replacement for human intelligence, advocating for a harmonious integration that amplifies human capabilities without supplanting them. According to Harfouche, Quinio, & Bugiotti, (2023), organizations are increasingly adopting collaborative decision-making frameworks that leverage the strengths of both humans and AI, leading to more informed and effective outcomes.

The ICTO2024 conference aims to delve into the aggregated decision-making models, such as the one proposed by Shrestha et al. (2019), which serves as a cornerstone for understanding the mechanics of Augmented Intelligence. Such model elucidates the processes through which AI can assist in organizational decision-making by augmenting, rather than replacing, human knowledge and intuition.

Moreover, the recent development in Human-Centric Explainable Informed AI (Harfouche et al. 2023) involves a two-way interaction between user and AI. From one side, "Informed AI" refers to artificial intelligence systems that are developed and operate with a comprehensive awareness and integration of relevant data, context, and knowledge to make decisions or provide insights (Johnson, AlBizri, Harfouche A., Fosso-Wamba, 2021). Unlike conventional AI systems, which might work with limited or narrowly defined data sets, informed AI leverages a broader spectrum of information, including real-time data, historical data, contextual understanding, and even domain-specific knowledge, to enhance its decision-making capabilities. From another side, Explainable AI refers to AI systems designed to provide insights into how and why they arrived at a particular decision or output (Johnson, AlBizri,  Harfouche, & Tutun, 2023). The goal is to make AI's decision-making process transparent, understandable, and interpretable for humans. This is in contrast to the "black box" nature of many AI models, where the decision-making process is opaque and difficult for humans to understand.

Challenges and Future Directions:

Despite the progress in XAI, there are ongoing challenges, including the trade-off between model complexity and interpretability, ensuring accuracy in explanations, and aligning AI explanations with human ethical and moral values. Future directions may involve developing standardized frameworks for XAI, improving methods for testing and validating explanations, and exploring interdisciplinary approaches that incorporate psychology, ethics, and social sciences to design truly human-centric AI systems.

In summary, Human-centric Explainable informed AI aims to bridge the gap between advanced AI technologies and the humans who use them, ensuring that AI's decision-making is accessible, understandable, and trustworthy. This not only enhances user experience and trust in AI systems but also ensures that AI is used responsibly and ethically in various domains.

A significant focus of the ICTO2024 conference will be on Responsible AI and its role in mitigating AI biases, as discussed by Harfouche, A., Quinio, B., & Bugiotti, F. (2023). The advent of Human-Centric AI emphasizes the importance of ethical considerations and the need for AI systems that complement human values and decision-making processes. This approach is critical in ensuring that the deployment of AI technologies contributes positively to societal advancement and the betterment of human lives.

Conference Objectives:

• To explore the latest advancements in Augmented Intelligence and its applications in various sectors.

• To discuss the ethical, social, and technological implications of integrating AI with human decision-making.

• To foster interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers, practitioners, and policymakers in the field of AI and human augmentation.

• To showcase innovative solutions and case studies that highlight the practical applications of Augmented Intelligence in creating smarter societies.

Call for Contributions:

We invite scholars and practitioners to contribute their insights, research findings, and experiences related to Augmented Intelligence. By sharing diverse perspectives on the integration of AI in enhancing human decision-making, we aim to chart a path forward for the development of smarter, more responsive societies.

Areas of interest include, amongst others, the following: