Socially Acceptable XR Technology for Community Engagement on Cultural and Urban Development

This paper presents the ongoing development of a demonstration project that integrates Extended Reality (XR) and Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) to foster community engagement in cultural and urban development. It involves the deployment of a socially acceptable virtual assistant on interactive outdoor screens in public spaces. These activities are being carried out in the scope of the eXtendRCity sub-project supported by the EU funded project SERMAS. The subproject aims to provide real-time information on local events, cultural heritage, and essential services, while simultaneously collecting citizen feedback for urban planning. The system leverages the SERMAS toolkit for XR avatar orchestration, integrates a customized ChatGPT for context-aware interactions, and includes a decision-support module for urban planners. A key focus of the project is on assessing the social acceptability of the virtual assistant through both structured surveys and in-situ behavioural data analysis. This paper describes the system architecture, outlines the methodology for participatory engagement and assessment of the Social Acceptance of the technology. Furthermore, it discusses the challenges and innovations associated with integrating AI-driven interfaces in public urban environments. The project is scheduled to be concluded until the end of August 2025, and the proposed methodology will be validated in upcoming tests and interviews.