The University of Macau's Institute of Collaborative Innovation (ICI) hosted the inaugural Macau Forum on Emotional Artificial Intelligence on April 16, 2025. The event drew approximately 200 experts from diverse fields, including computer science, robotics, linguistics, and psychology.
Rector Yonghua Song highlighted the forum's role in fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation in emotional AI, emphasizing its increasing importance in promoting mental well-being. Discussions centered on using technology to detect human emotions through verbal, non-verbal, and brain signals. Keynote speakers, including Erik Cambria from Nanyang Technological University and Lu Bao-Liang from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, presented research on sentiment analysis, affective computing, and brain-computer interfaces.
The forum also addressed the computational, philosophical, and ethical challenges of developing emotion-aware AI systems. Hu Bin from the Beijing Institute of Technology discussed affective AI for mental disorder diagnosis and treatment, while Johan F. Hoorn from Hong Kong Polytechnic University explored emotional AI models for socially sensitive robots. Huang Minlie from Tsinghua University examined how large language models can enhance AI's social and emotional intelligence. The ICI aims to promote collaboration between industry and academia in the Greater Bay Area and beyond.