Call: “What can Synthetic Biology offer to Artificial Intelligence? New frontiers” (SB-AI 2017) at ECAL 2017

Call for Abstracts

SB-AI 2017: What can Synthetic Biology offer to Artificial Intelligence? New frontiers
September, 4, 2017 – Lyon, France

Satellite Workshop at ECAL 2017 – The European Conference on Artificial Life
September, 4-8, 2017
http://alife.org/conference/ecal-2017

Co-organized by
Luisa Damiano (University of Messina, Messina, Italy)
Yutetsu Kuruma (ELSI, Tokyo, Japan)
Pasquale Stano (University of Salento, Lecce, Italy)

Deadline for abstracts: July, 30 2017

Traditionally Artificial Intelligence (AI) research, broadly conceived as the study of intelligence through the construction of artificial models of natural cognitive systems, has been developed in the context of computer science and robotics. Today the emergence of Synthetic Biology (SB), conceived as the chemical synthesis of biological parts/systems/processes, allows the scientific community to extend AI research within the field of experimental biology.

The workshop aims at offering an interdisciplinary forum in which nascent programs involving cooperation between SB and AI in the exploration of biological and cognitive processes can be discussed in their groundings, their procedures, their possibilities and their limits, as well as enriched through scientific exchange of ideas.

The main focus will be double. On one side, we are interested on current and possible applications in AI research of the emerging SB front -line research, with a particular attention for bio-chemical based Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) founded on the convergence of biological, chemical, and physical approaches, often in combination with progresses in miniaturization like micro-fluidic devices and Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS). On the other side, the workshop points to actual and possible approaches and research programs that involve AI in SB research.

Most of the participants will have a SB, AI, and/or bio-chem-ICT background, or come from scientific disciplines dealing with theoretical, epistemological and/or experimental issues related to the synthetic study of life and cognition. Our goal is to stimulate the interaction between applied and theoretical research, as well as epistemological reflection, and to support a front line in SB and AI focusing on (some of) these questions:

  • Can cognition be studied through the construction and exploration of synthetic biological systems and processes? In which conditions? More specifically: What can SB offer to AI?
  • Which are the groundings, procedures, possibilities, limits, expected results, and impacts of current and possible research programs involving SB in AI research? How AI will advance by encompassing SB and bio-chem-ICT approaches?
  • Can we nowadays plan concrete collaborations between computer science, robotics and SB in the scientific study natural forms of intelligence? How?
  • Are the emerging directions of research in AI (such as embodied AI, enactive AI, soft robotics, …) good candidate to cooperate with SB in the exploration of natural forms of cognition? Can SB contribute to the development of artificial forms of cognition (artificial cognitive systems which do not model natural cognitive systems)?

The workshop intends to bring together researchers interested in investigating one or more of these aspects of the (possible/actual) relationships between SB and AI. The aim is developing an interdisciplinary dialogue able to promote the reflected involvement of SB in AI, and to create an interdisciplinary community concretely developing research programs based on the cooperation of SB and AI, and all related domains and lines of research.

If you would like to participate, please submit an abstract as a single PDF file (min 1000, max 2000 words) by sending the file as an e-mail attachment to:
pasquale.stano@unisalento.it; ldamiano@unime.it .

Please, indicate as subject: SB-AI 2017 Abstract Submission.

Reception of abstracts will be confirmed by an e-mail message.

Deadline for sending the Abstract: July, 30 2017

The best abstracts will be selected by the program committee, composed by the organizers and additional specialists in the relevant research domains (currently under recruitment).

We will try to accept the maximal number of abstracts and organize the workshop in order to favor a wide participation, within the constraint, however, of the time slot originally programmed (half-day). Program details and other practical issues will be defined as soon as we shape the final list of speakers.

Authors will be notified for abstract acceptance August, 10, 2017.

Depending on the participation and reach of a critical mass, after the workshop we plan the edition of a journal special issue collecting papers based on the accepted contributions to the workshop.

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