Call for Papers and Workshop Proposals
Robophilosophy Conference 2024
SOCIAL ROBOTS WITH AI:
PROSPECTS, RISKS, AND RESPONSIBLE METHODS
August 20-23, 2024
Aarhus University, Denmark [and online; see below]
https://cas.au.dk/en/robophilosophy/conferences/rpc2024
Submission deadline for proposals for workshops and panels: January 31, 2024
Submission deadline for short research papers and posters: February 15, 2024
The recent technological leap in AI capacities can be expected to engender a transformative paradigm shift in social robotics. Multimodal AI’s will soon allow social robots to respond to human verbal commands with autonomously generated simulations of human actions. In fact, social robots can be expected to act in a context-adequate fashion and to generate novel intentions.
Multimodal AI thus represents a major step towards the longstanding vision of social roboticists to integrate robots “everywhere” into our lives, “at work and at home,” and to “personalize” robots. Multimodal AI will be a game-changer for the equally longstanding socio-cultural concerns arising with this technology: how will social robots, with their radically improved practical ad simulatory skills, affect societies and individuals: our economies, social practices, human social and intimate relations? As the margin of ‘humans-only’ competences is dwindling, how will this affect our cultural and individual self-comprehension?
We live “the robotic moment” in human cultural history where we need to determine “who we are and who we are willing to become” (Sherry Turkle)—and now we have entered a decisive phase. Many AI researchers clearly perceive the risks of generative AI. These risks amplify when AI’s embedded in social robots can act out their “hallucinations”. But risk management for social robots goes far beyond safety considerations—when artificial agents act in the physical and symbolic space of human social interactions, risk management requires expertise in analyzing the complex domain of social practices and human experiences.
The aim of the international research conference RP2024 is to address the deep and far-reaching questions raised by recent advances in AI on the basis of the required research expertise. RP2024 will bring together international researchers from all relevant disciplines, from social robotics and AI research, but especially also from Humanities and social science research in HRI (Human-Robot Interact research). The special ambition of RP2024 is to produce actionable knowledge based on professional engagement of the foundational issues—only in this fashion we can move beyond well-intentioned proclamations and address the expectable socio-cultural transformations of societies by social robotics in a responsible fashion.
RP2024 is the sixth event in the Robophilosophy Conference Series, which since 2014 has featured the world’s largest events for Humanities research in and on social robotics. Given the urgency of research-based regulations, experts on society and experts on technology need to collaborate. RP2024 challenges Humanities researchers to showcase concretely how conceptual and phenomenological research can contribute to this collaborative effort; and RP2024 challenges engineers who take their new responsibilities seriously to contribute technical facts and prospects.
FORMAT AND CONFERENCE TOPICS
The conference will feature about 80-100 talks in plenaries, special workshops, and parallel sessions of reviewed research papers. Online participation is possible. Papers should address the selected conference topics.
PLENARY SPEAKERS
SHERRY TURKLE, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
DAVID CHALMERS, New York University, USA
WENDELL WALLACH, The Hastings Center, USA
MELANIE MITCHELL, Santa Fe Institute, USA
ANTHONY ELLIOTT, University of South Australia, Australia
(further plenaries TBA)
TIMELINE
Submission deadlines:
- January 31, 2024: Submission of proposals for workshops and panels
- February 15, 2024: Submission of short research papers and posters
Notifications:
- February 20, 2024: Notification on acceptance of proposals for workshops and panels
- April 2, 2024: Notification on acceptance of research papers and posters
Submission of full papers:
- May 15, 2024: Submission for review of revised papers with major revisions; final notification May 25
- June 1: Submission of fully formatted penultimate versions of research papers, workshop descriptions, and posters
Registration:
- June 10: Deadline for speakers to register
Conference: August 20-23, 2024
Proceedings:
- October 1, 2024: Submission of final versions of research papers, workshop descriptions, and posters
- December 15, 2024: Publication of RP2024 Proceedings
For further information see https://cas.au.dk/en/robophilosophy/conferences/rpc2024