Reusable learning resources, cultural material and research corpora
University of Limerick | Lero | Research Ireland
Bringing immersive learning spaces to life with accountable AI.
AI-MINDS explores new ways of learning: explainable avatars, open-source innovation and XR environments that support personal lifelong learning, curiosity and accountable human-AI dialogue.
Avatar response
"Let's explore this together. Here is the evidence, the learning path and where uncertainty remains."
Dialogue, retrieval, reflection and explanation layer
Risk, provenance, accessibility and accountability checks
Human evaluator
Reviews learner agency, trust calibration, explanation quality and learning impact.
Audit trail active
Open sourceModelAvatarLearning spaceAudit
Visual learning lab
Socrates becomes a living learning space.
These prototype visuals show the AI-MINDS idea in a form people can immediately understand: open learning infrastructure that can bring historical thinkers, contested ideas and reflective dialogue into immersive educational spaces.
Immersive prototype
From passive lesson to living encounter
A learner does not only read about Socrates. They can enter a reconstructed learning space, ask questions, challenge answers and see how evidence, uncertainty and perspective shape the dialogue.
Embodied explanation
Ideas made spatial
AI becomes a guide that can explain, show, pause and reveal source limits inside the scene.
Lifelong dialogue
Dialogue over algorithms
The learning space supports reflection, questioning and personal learning paths rather than one-way content delivery.
Research question
What if learning spaces could think with us?
AI-MINDS studies the shift from static content to living, immersive learning spaces: environments where AI characters can speak, remember, gesture, explain, adapt and reveal their own limits. The aim is to help people keep learning across life, while making the AI systems that support them open, inspectable and accountable.
Learning vision
Personal lifelong learning, made immersive and open.
Learn by entering the idea
Instead of reading about a concept from outside, learners step into a scene, meet an avatar guide and test ideas through dialogue, simulation and reflection.
Build a personal learning path
AI-MINDS explores how immersive agents can adapt to a person's goals, prior knowledge, confidence, pace and lifelong learning ambitions.
Open the system
Open-source innovation matters because learning infrastructure should be reusable, inspectable and improvable by educators, researchers and communities.
Keep humans in charge
The learning space should invite curiosity without hiding uncertainty, sources, model limits or the points where human judgement matters.
How it works
An open pipeline from knowledge to immersive lifelong learning.
Open source
Curated learning material, cultural archives, research corpora and reusable open components.
Model
Retrieval, language generation, uncertainty handling and domain adaptation under explicit constraints.
Avatar
Voice, gaze, gesture, affective timing and XR presence aligned with learning goals.
Learning space
Immersive sessions measuring trust, recall, agency, curiosity, confidence and willingness to challenge the system.
Audit
Provenance, explanation, policy checks, source limits and human review points retained for governance.
Old learning surface
Read. Watch. Recall.
- One-way delivery
- Limited feedback
- Little visibility into misunderstanding
- Learning path often ends when the lesson ends
Living learning space
Enter. Question. Build. Return.
- Dialogue with source-grounded AI characters
- XR context and multimodal interaction
- Personal learning pathways across time
- Open components, provenance and human oversight
Research prototypes
Experimental systems that make lifelong learning feel alive.
Historical thinker dialogue
A virtual agent that debates, cites, refuses weak claims and helps learners return to questions over time.
statesource-linked answerlearning path updatedhuman challenge logged
Immersive coaching
Adaptive learning and rehabilitation support
Immersive prompts and agent feedback explored under expert supervision for care, confidence and lifelong capability-building.
Reusable AI learning infrastructure
A research interface for capturing decisions, explanations, provenance and reusable open components for learning spaces.
open stackretrieval tracepolicy passmodule reusable
Proof discipline
AI-MINDS measures what matters for lifelong learning.
Can people identify when to trust, question or reject an AI response?
Does embodied dialogue improve curiosity, metacognition and learner control across time?
Are sources, uncertainty and refusal logic visible at the moment of interaction?
Can researchers and educators inspect decisions after the session?
Research leadership
Led by Associate Professor Martin Cunneen.
Martin Cunneen is Associate Professor at the University of Limerick, Lero and the Data-Driven Computer Engineering Research Centre. His work examines machine intelligence, AI governance, risk, ethics, language, robotics and the societal implications of data-driven systems.
AI-MINDS sits inside a wider research ecosystem spanning AI-ERA, AIXLAB, Horizon Europe collaboration, Research Ireland programmes and industry-facing applied AI research, with a focus on open, reusable infrastructure for immersive learning.
- Research focus
- Trustworthy AI, XAI, governance, ethics, XR and language systems
- Research base
- University of Limerick, Lero, AI-ERA and AIXLAB
- Connected portfolio
- AI-MINDS, AI-CARE, XTREME, Motiverse-P and Somabotics-linked research
- Core question
- How can open embodied AI support lifelong learning without becoming opaque, manipulative or over-trusted?
Research evidence
Selected outputs informing the AI-MINDS agenda.
AI assistants
Artificial intelligence assistants and risk
Risk framing, connectivity risk and user awareness in AI assistant systems.
Machine agencyArtificial Driving Intelligence and Moral Agency
Ethical decision ontology for autonomous machine decisions.
XAIExplainable Artificial Intelligence in Insurance
Explainability expectations in regulated decision and risk contexts.
Clinical AILarge Language Models in Clinical Applications
Opportunities, challenges and ethical considerations for clinical LLMs.
Research universe
A connected map of accountable AI, open innovation and immersive learning.
AI-MINDS
open immersive learning
open immersive learning
AI-ERA
ethics regulation accountability
ethics regulation accountability
AI-CARE
agentic AR collaborators
agentic AR collaborators
XTREME
culture and mixed reality
culture and mixed reality
Motiverse-P
rehabilitation XR
rehabilitation XR
Somabotics
embodied AI and meaning
embodied AI and meaning
Collaborate
Build open immersive learning spaces with us.
AI-MINDS welcomes research, industry, education and public-sector partners working on explainable avatars, XR learning, cultural heritage, healthcare interaction, open-source innovation and trustworthy AI governance.
- Research partners in AI governance, XR, education, culture and health.
- Open-source and industry teams building reusable auditable AI learning components.
- Public-sector and cultural organisations testing responsible immersive lifelong learning.