Training Social Skill via Large Language Models
Presented by Dr. Yang
Dr. Yang’s research focuses on human-centered natural language processing and computational social science. She has received the Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship (2021), NSF CAREER Award (2022), ONR Young Investigator Award (2023), and Sloan Research Fellowship (2024). Her work has earned multiple paper awards and nominations at top NLP and HCI conferences.
Abstract
Social skills are key to success in work and life, but finding good practice opportunities isn’t easy. Most training relies on expert supervision, which doesn’t scale well given the shortage of trained professionals. So how can we make social skill training more accessible and engaging? In this talk, I’ll share two projects using LLMs to bridge this gap—one helping therapists improve their skills with AI-powered feedback, and another using simulated practice to teach conflict resolution. We’ll also discuss the risks of LLM-based training and how we can address them.