Computational Social Science – Maja Mataric, University of Southern California
https://www.ispeech.org
Computational Social Science
Maja Mataric, University of Southern California
Computational Social Science (CSS) is the interdisciplinary research area that aims to model, understand, and predict human social behavior at various scales, from dyadic, to crowds, to entire populations, through computational modeling and related techniques. CSS lies at the intersection of computational and social science, two fields that are themselves vast, one spanning numerous methods, models, and platforms (from wearable sensors to iPhones to robots) and the other studying behavior at all levels (including psychology, sociology, and economics, to name just a few). Thus, CSS presents a broad spectrum of novel challenges that are constantly expanded with ever-increased human connectivity and interactivity, and the ubiquity of sensors and communication channels. CSS research aims to model complex systems with temporal, spatial, feedback, causal, and relational dependencies, using large bodies of often multi-modal data that may involve privacy constraints. The research draws on various methods for data mining and analysis and applies to a vast variety of data types and domains, from the physical to the virtual. CSS has the potential to expand the impact of computer science, to quantify the social sciences, and to inform industry and policy about the complex social interactions and systems that determine no less than our economic welfare, security, health care, education, and sustainability of our society.
Background review article:
"Robots That Care: Advances in Technological Therapy", Jerome Groopman, The New Yorker Magazine, Nov. 2, 2009.
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