Umeå University
printicon
Main menu hidden.
Staff photo Frank Dignum

Frank Dignum

I'm a Professor, leading a research group in the field of socially conscious AI. We develop models that can provide insights into how society can respond to political changes or natural disasters.

Contact

E-mail
frank.dignum@umu.se
Phone
+46 90 786 91 01

Works at

Affiliation
Professor at Department of Computing Science Role: Deputy head of department, Deputy head of department
Location
MIT-huset, Umeå universitet, MIT.B.443 Umeå universitet, 901 87 Umeå
Affiliation
Affiliated as other position at Centre for Transdiciplinary AI Role: Director

I'm leading a research group on socially aware AI that creates computational models of social aspects such as norms, values, practices, and conventions. These models can be used to create social simulations that are more realistic and give insights into how society will react to changes in policies and natural disasters. They are also used to create more natural dialogues with chatbots that can be used for training medical students to have conversations with patients.

My career started with my Ph.D. in 1989 at the VU in Amsterdam. After working in Swaziland, Portugal and The Netherlands I became Wallenberg chair in socially aware AI at Umeå University in 2019. I also have an affiliation with Utrecht University and am an honorary principal research fellow of the University of Melbourne.

An appraisal transition system for event-driven emotions in agent-based player experience testing
Engineering multi-agent systems, Springer 2022 : 156-174
Ansari, Saba Gholizadeh; Prasetya, I.S.W.B.; Dastani, Mehdi; et al.
Towards Efficient Context-Sensitive Deliberation
Advances in Social Simulation: Proceedings of the 16th Social Simulation Conference, 20–24 September 2021, Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2022 : 409-421
Jensen, Maarten; Verhagen, Harko; Vanhée, Loïs; et al.
Changing Perspectives: Adaptable Interpretations of Norms for Agents
Multi-Agent-Based Simulation XXII: 22nd International Workshop, MABS 2021, Virtual Event, May 3-7, 2021, Revised Selected Papers, Springer 2022 : 139-152
Kammler, Christian; Dignum, Frank; Wijermans, Nanda; et al.
Socially Aware Interactions: From Dialogue Trees to Natural Language Dialogue Systems
Chatbot Research and Design, Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2022 : 124-140
Lobo, Inês; Rato, Diogo; Prada, Rui; et al.
Incorporating Social Practices in Dialogue Systems
Chatbot Research and Design: 5th International Workshop, CONVERSATIONS 2021, Virtual Event, November 23–24, 2021, Revised Selected Papers, Springer 2022 : 108-123
Yildiz, Eren; Bensch, Suna; Dignum, Frank
Preface
International Conference on Practical Applications of Agents and Multi-Agent Systems
Dignum, Frank; Corchado, Juan Manuel; De la Prieta, Fernando
Drug Trafficking As Illegal Supply Chain - A Social Simulation
Advances in Social Simulation: Proceedings of the 15th Social Simulation Conference: 23–27 September 2019, Springer 2021 : 9-22
Jensen, Maarten; Dignum, Frank
A Closer Look at Dutch Policy Development
Advances in Social Simulation: Proceedings of the 15th Social Simulation Conference: 23–27 September 2019, Springer 2021 : 383-395
Melchior, A.; Dignum, Frank; Ruiz, M.
Social rules for agent systems
Coordination, Organizations, Institutions, Norms, and Ethics for Governance of Multi-Agent Systems XIII: International Workshops COIN 2017 and COINE 2020, Sao Paulo, Brazil, May 8-9, 2017 and Virtual Event, May 9, 2020, Revised Selected Papers : 175-180
Mellema, Rene; Jensen, Maarten; Dignum, Frank
Are We Done Yet? or When is Our Model Perfect (Enough)?
Advances in Social Simulation: Proceedings of the 15th Social Simulation Conference: 23–27 September 2019, Springer 2021 : 285-290
Mertens, A.; Feliciani, Thomas; Heidari, S.; et al.
Give more data, awareness and control to individual citizens, and they will help COVID-19 containment
Ethics and Information Technology, Springer 2021, Vol. 23 : 1-6
Nanni, Mirco; Andrienko, Gennady; Barabasi, Albert-Laszlo; et al.
Developers’ Responses to App Review Feedback – A Study of Communication Norms in App Development
Coordination, Organizations, Institutions, Norms, and Ethics for Governance of Multi-Agent Systems XIII: International Workshops COIN 2017 and COINE 2020, Sao Paulo, Brazil, May 8-9, 2017 and Virtual Event, May 9, 2020, Revised Selected Papers, Springer Nature 2021 : 57-75
Savarimuthu, Bastin Tony Roy; Licorish, Sherlock A.; Devananda, Manjula; et al.
Using an agent-based approach for robust automated testing of computer games
A-TEST 2021 - Proceedings of the 12th International Workshop on Automating TEST Case Design, Selection, and Evaluation, co-located with ESEC/FSE 2021, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) 2021 : 1-8
Shirzadehhajimahmood, Samira; Prasetya, I.S.W.B.; Dignum, Frank; et al.
The Role of Environments in Affording Deceptive Behaviour: Some Preliminary Insights from Stage Magic
Deceptive AI: First International Workshop, DeceptECAI 2020, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, August 30, 2020 and Second International Workshop, DeceptAI 2021, Montreal, Canada, August 19, 2021, Proceedings, Springer Nature 2021 : 17-26
Smith, Wally; Kirley, Michael; Sonenberg, Liz; et al.
Towards Fundamental Models of Radicalization
Advances in Social Simulation: Proceedings of the 15th Social Simulation Conference: 23–27 September 2019, Springer 2021 : 67-79
van den Hurk, Mijke; Dignum, Frank
Agent-Based Modelling of Values: The Case of Value Sensitive Design for Refugee Logistics
JASSS: Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Guildford: JASSS 2020, Vol. 23, (4)
Boshuijzen-van Burken, Christine; Gore, Ross; Dignum, Frank; et al.
Social Models for Social Robotics
Culturally Sustainable Social Robotics, IOS Press 2020 : 515-519
Clodic, Aurélie; Dignum, Frank; Fernández Castro, Víctor; et al.
Analysing the Combined Health, Social and Economic Impacts of the Corovanvirus Pandemic Using Agent-Based Social Simulation
Minds and Machines, Springer 2020, Vol. 30, (2) : 177-194
Dignum, Frank; Dignum, Virginia; Davidsson, Paul; et al.
Give more data, awareness and control to individual citizens, and they will help COVID-19 containment
Transactions on Data Privacy, Transactions on Data Privacy 2020, Vol. 13, (1) : 61-66
Nanni, Mirco; Andrienko, Gennady; Barabasi, Albert-Laszlo; et al.
Agent-based Testing of Extended Reality Systems
2020 IEEE 13TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SOFTWARE TESTING, VALIDATION AND VERIFICATION (ICST 2020), IEEE Communications Society 2020 : 414-417
Prada, Rui; Prasetya, I. S. W. B.; Kifetew, Fitsum; et al.
Aplib: Tactical Agents for Testing Computer Games
Engineering Multi-Agent Systems: 8th International Workshop, EMAS 2020, Auckland, New Zealand, May 8–9, 2020, Revised Selected Papers, Springer 2020 : 21-41
Prasetya, I.S.W.B.; Dastani, Mehdi; Prada, Rui; et al.
Governance by Glass-Box: Implementing Transparent Moral Bounds for AI Behaviour
Proceedings of the 28th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence
Aler Tubella, Andrea; Theodorou, Andreas; Dignum, Frank; et al.
Incorporating Social Practices in BDI Agent Systems
AAMAS '19: International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems AAMAS 2019, ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY 2019 : 1901-1903
Cranefield, Stephen; Dignum, Frank
On Enactability of Agent Interaction Protocols: Towards a Unified Approach
AAMAS '19: Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, ACM Digital Library 2019 : 1955-1957
Ferrando, Angelo; Winikoff, Michael; Cranefield, Stephen; et al.
View publications in DiVA

Research groups

Head of research
Socially aware AI

Research projects

1 June 2020 until 1 June 2024
Socially Aware Dialogue Management
1 June 2020 until 1 June 2024
Socially Aware Dialogue Management
1 March 2020
ASSOCC
1 February 2020 until 1 February 2024
Modeling Social Reality for Social Simulations
1 January 2020 until 31 December 2023
HumaneAI-Net