Diseño de agentes virtuales accesibles desde procesos participativos con adultos autistas

Título	Codiseño de agentes virtuales para adultos autistas en el entorno doméstico
Palabras Clave	autismo, interacción humano-computadora, agente virtual, tecnologías asistivas, codiseño.
Carreras Relacionadas	Magíster
Período	2024-2025
Financiamiento	FONDEF
Área	Forma, Cultura y Tecnología
Modalidad	Asociado (interuniversitario)
Investigador Responsable	Daniel Serrano
Coinvestigadores	Herbert Spencer, Katherine Exss, Vanessa Vega Córdova

Resumen

La condición del espectro autista (CEA) es un conjunto de afecciones en el desarrollo del cerebro que afecta principalmente las habilidades sociales del individuo y la manifestación de comportamientos repetitivos y estereotipados, entre otros rasgos conductuales (WHO, 2023). A nivel doméstico, estos rasgos pueden llevar al desarrollo de escenarios como rutinas estructuradas, rígidas e inalterables, falta de cuidado personal y olvido de tareas aperiódicas, lo que impacta en la autonomía y calidad de vida de las personas que lo padecen, contribuyendo a relaciones de dependencia y discapacidad. En este contexto se plantea el proyecto FONDEF TEAsy Life, al cual se adscribe esta investigación. Éste plantea el desarrollo de un dispositivo inteligente que utilice un agente virtual de inteligencia artificial (IA), para asistir a adultos autistas de nivel 1 y 2 en el desarrollo de las actividades de la vida diaria en el entorno doméstico.

Los sistemas de inteligencia artificial avanzada lanzados al mercado en los últimos años abren la posibilidad de diseñar herramientas que se adapten al usuario, aprendan y actualicen constantemente, proporcionando un apoyo personalizado y contextualizado. Sin embargo, junto a las posibilidades que brinda la IA, surgen nuevas interrogantes sobre el funcionamiento de esta tecnología y su impacto en el usuario. Algunas de estas incluyen el manejo seguro de la información personal y los efectos psicológicos que puede tener en estos la interacción con sistemas como Chat GPT-4 que pasó el test de Turing en 2024 (Jones & Bergen, 2024).

Si a esta funcionalidad se le suma una marcada preferencia de las personas autistas por interactuar con estímulos antropomórficos por sobre humanos reales (Atherton & Cross, 2018), y su mayor propensión a la antropomorfización de objetos (Clutterbuck et al., 2022), esta investigación se pregunta si la percepción de este sistema como agente social (Balasuriya et al., 2024) afectaría su accesibilidad y la percepción de autonomía del usuario en relación a la herramienta.

Para responder a esta interrogante se plantea realizar una investigación participativa mediante talleres de codiseño con adultos autistas de nivel 1 y 2, para desarrollar un modelo de diseño de dispositivo inteligente que sea atingente a los anhelos y necesidades reales de adultos autistas, dando como resultado una herramienta que promueva la autonomía, sea accesible y de valor para su vida doméstica cotidiana.

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