Call for Papers
ROBOPHILOSOPHY 2022: Social Robots in Social Institutions
August 16-19, 2022
University of Helsinki, Finland.
http://www.rpc2022.org
Submission deadlines:
- Workshop descriptions: January 15, 2022
- Posters, extended abstracts, full papers: January 31, 2022
The aim of social robotics is to create entities capable of social interaction with humans. In human societies, many forms of social interaction have become social institutions, that is, complex social forms that reproduce themselves, for instance, families, governments, legal systems, healthcare services, universities, and business corporations. Institutions offer individuals incentives and sanctions to maintain their stability and to serve their goals. They also enable individuals to cooperate and provide a platform to resolve disagreements and conflicts among interests. The central aim of the conference is to understand and to critically evaluate how social robotics is transforming institutional structures, institutional practices, and the institution–citizen interaction for instance in the fields of social and health care, education, science, media, and law.
The societal significance of social robots is a central and urgent question for all social sciences and humanities (SSH) disciplines as social robots are restructuring, reshaping, and moulding central institutions of our societies. In light of institutional design it is of primary importance to understand how the introduction of social robots affects the ability of our institutions to perform their functions in society. We need to pay attention to normative issues like justice and equality, transparency, responsibility allocations, and trust in institutions. Ecological and environmental consequences of large-scale use of social robotics and its technological prerequisites such as smart devices, networks, and computing and memory resources are in need of serious attention as well. The introduction of social robots may create a need for novel kinds of regulation in the case of public institutions. As to the development of social robots capable of navigating in the social and institutional reality, it is crucial to enable them to recognize such normative aspects of social institutions as roles, norms, and practices. Robophilosophy 2022 will explore these and related questions, with its usual broad scope, embracing both theoretical and practical angles. The event is an invitation to philosophers and other SSH researchers, as well as researchers in social robotics and HRI, to explore in detail how social robotics as an interdisciplinary endeavour can contribute to well-functioning institutions.
CONFIRMED PLENARIES
- Rachid Alami (University of Toulouse, France)
- Virginia Dignum (Umeå University, Sweden)
- Maja Matarić (University of Southern California, USA)
- Seumas Miller (Charles Sturt University, Australia)
- Sven Nyholm (Utrecht University, The Netherlands)
- Darrell M. West (Brookings Institution, USA)
IMPORTANT DATES
- Deadlines for submissions
- Workshop descriptions: January 15, 2022
- Posters, extended abstracts, full papers: January 31, 2022
- Notification of acceptance: March 15, 2022
- Final papers due: May 15, 2022
TOPICS OF INTEREST (non-exclusive list)
- Robots and social institutions in general
- Robots in particular institutions, such as healthcare, art, law, education
- Robots and social justice
- Social roles and norms for robots
- Institutional design in light of AI and robots
SUBMISSION CATEGORIES
- Extended abstracts (1000-2000 words) for short research papers (4000-5000 words)
- Abstracts for poster presentations and art installations (1000-2000 words)
- Workshop descriptions (1000-3000 words, describing topic, format, and speakers)
ORGANISERS
- Main organizers of Robophilosophy 2022: Raul Hakli, Pekka Mäkelä, and the RADAR group (http://radar.cs.helsinki.fi)
- Organizers of the Robophilosophy Conference Series and Co-Organizers of RP2022: Johanna Seibt and Marco Nørskov, Research Unit for Robophilosophy (http://www.robophilosophy.org/)
FURTHER INFORMATION
www: http://www.rpc2022.org
e-mail: rp2022@helsinki.fi