Call for Participation

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants:
Exploring the Intersection of Philosophy and HCI
A CHI 2019 workshop
Glasgow, UK,
Saturday May 4th, 2019
https://authentic.sice.indiana.edu/philosophy-hci-workshop/

Submission deadline: 12 February 2019

Download the workshop proposal.

Philosophy has provided a vital perspective for HCI on how we navigate, experience, understand, and judge the world around us and its artifacts. Lately, HCI scholars have also sought to use philosophy’s program of answering what it means to live a “good” life to investigate the ethical and moral implications of the technologies we design. As philosophy in its many forms continues to open up new influences and our relations with technology broaden, we believe it is timely to have a meta-discussion about what links philosophy and HCI. As we understand it, philosophy’s strength lies in its diversity, depth, and interpretive flexibility.

The goal of this one-day workshop (Saturday May 4th, 2019) will be to sustain this thread by bringing together HCI scholars who have been drawn to philosophy to develop a shared agenda on how to understand it and carry it forward. Attendees will discuss their experiences with philosophically-informed research, epistemological and practical concerns when pairing philosophy with traditional HCI methods, and how philosophy can help us understand and design for users.

We invite interested researchers to submit a 2-4 page (excluding references) position paper in the CHI Extended Abstracts format (http://chi2019.acm.org/authors/chi-proceedings-format) that addresses the key topic(s) of the workshop. The paper should also include a short author biography that includes current research or potential goals of research.

Submissions (PDF format) should be sent to normsu@indiana.edu by February 12th, 2019 (3:00PM EST) and will be reviewed based on relevancy to the workshop. At least one co-author of each accepted submission should attend the workshop.

KEY GOALS AND TOPICS

• Describing and reflecting on existing philosophically-informed HCI research.
• Identifying emerging phenomena, issues, and challenges in HCI, addressing which would benefit from engaging with philosophy.
• Considering how we can practically learn and “do” philosophy. For instance, how might we explicitly meld traditional HCI methodology stemming from disciplines like psychology with philosophy?
• Asking what philosophy means for understanding stakeholders and for design of interactive systems.
• Developing how can we make philosophy in HCI more accessible.
• Outlining an agenda (or agendas) for philosophically informed HCI.

Read more on Call: Philosophy and HCI workshop at CHI 2019…

Human-Machine Communication: What Does/Could Communication Science Contribute to HRI?

A Workshop at HRI 2019, the 14th Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human Robot Interaction
Daegu, Korea
March 11-14, 2019

HRI 2019: http://humanrobotinteraction.org/2019
Workshop: https://www.combotlabs.org/hmchri2019.html

Submission deadline: February 1, 2019

OVERVIEW

In the discipline of Communication Science, human-machine communication (HMC) has recently emerged as a new context of study. Although historically focused on human communication, communication scientists also (increasingly) examine processes of (a) message production, reception, evaluation, and effects, (b) construction and negotiation of meanings, and (c) coordination of action between humans and digital interlocutors, which may include social robots, artificial intelligence agents, and human-robot assemblages (e.g., cyborgs, machine-augmented persons, and actor networks).

Although both HRI and Communication Science often trace their origins to the transdisciplinary cybernetics of the 20th century, they have since developed in relative isolation, with scant scholarly exchange concerning the similarities and differences in their assumptions, insights, and approaches. In the meantime, their basic models of the communication process, theoretical frames, and methodological innovations have evolved in different directions that are newly relevant to one another as robots become increasingly human-like, social, and communicative. Yet, the relatively rare intersections of Communication Science and HRI in recent years have been tremendously productive and generative for both fields.

FORMAT OF WORKSHOP

This half-day workshop will feature invited talks from a submission process and a moderated group session. For the invited talk portion of the workshop, participants will be invited to submit brief papers and then present to the group. Each speaker will be given an allotted amount of time to present their work. In the moderated group session (a “birds of a feather” session), workshop participants will be divided into groups based on their area of focus so that they can discuss shared aspects of their research. Each small workshop group will have an organizer as a facilitator to lead the discussion of communication theory as it relates to research agendas. The “birds of a feather” session will be highly interactive. At the conclusion of the workshop, each group will present a summary of the ideas discussed and future meetings will be explored.

CALL FOR PAPERS

We invite potential participants to submit a paper for the workshop about using communication-related theories/methods in HRI studies (no longer than five pages using the IEEE/HRI template). Submissions can range from theory position arguments to studies that demonstrate the use of communication science theory in the HRI context. Participants with selected papers will be asked to present their work to the workshop with an 8-minute talk. All papers will receive at least two peer reviews from those familiar with both communication science theory/method and HRI studies.

SEND PAPERS TO chad.edwards@wmich.edu Read more on Call: “Human-Machine Communication: What Does/Could Communication Science Contribute to HRI?” An HRI 2019 Workshop…

Call for Participation

CHI 2019 Workshop on ‘The Future of Work’
Glasgow, UK
May 4/5

CHI 2019: chi2019.acm.org
Workshop: www.futureofwork.site

Submissions due: February 12, 2019

In this one-day workshop, we invite scholars, designers, developers, policymakers and provocateurs to explore the implications of innovations in technology for the future of work and its intersection with the CHI community.

Discussion and activity will be focused on the production of outputs (research questions, opportunities for innovation, insights) to be used as a resource in HCI research and design. These will be disseminated via the workshop website and an Interactions article.

WORKSHOP SUBMISSIONS

We invite submissions of up to 2,000 words, which articulate their importance to discussions on the future of work. Submissions can be primarily visual but should be accompanied by a description of their relevance, and may include any of the following:

• A thought-piece, description of research, design fiction, or analysis of ethics or policy;
• A design concept, prototype or experience, illustrated through photography, video or similar;
• A novel method or tool.

Submissions should be sent by email to futureofwork2019@gmail.com. At least one author of each accepted submission must attend the workshop. All participants must register for the workshop and for at least one day of the conference. Submissions will be made available on the workshop webpage. Read more on Call: CHI 2019 Workshop on ‘The Future of Work’…

Call for Papers

European Conference on the Impact of AI and Robotics (ECIAIR 2019)
31 October – 1 November
Oxford, UK
https://www.academic-conferences.org/conferences/eciair/eciair-call-for-papers/

Abstract submission deadline: 11 April 2019

This is a first call for papers for the European Conference on the Impact of AI and Robotics (ECIAIR 2019) being hosted by EM-Normandie Business School, Oxford, UK 31 October – 1 November.

The European Conference on the Impact of AI and Robotics (ECIAIR 2019) has come about as a result of the maturing of artificial intelligence and robotics, particularly of the cognitive computing kind, which is producing an unprecedented revolution in the role of work and professionals in society. This Conference aims to focus not so much on the technology itself, but rather its consequence on knowledge work and society. We are looking for research with a broad set of approaches including the future of the professions; knowledge networks enabled by cognitive computing and other technologies; education issues; collaborative robots; ever-more autonomous machines and their relationship with humans; whether we will need to demand ethical or at least acceptable social behaviours on the part of machines; considerations on assigning personhood to machines; to name a few topics.

Topics may include but are not limited to:

• The consequences of AI and robotics on knowledge work and society
• The future of the professions
• Enabling knowledge networks with cognitive computing and other technologies
• Collaborative robots
• The impact of ever more autonomous machines and their relationship with humans
• Ethical and acceptable social behaviours
• Sectorial applications of AI including:
  • Fintech and the financial services industry
  • Life sciences and healthcare
  • Utilities and transport management services
  • In the development of Smart-cities
  • In government
  • In education

We would also welcome applications of AI to solving some of the World’s global challenges such as to improve the health and wellbeing of children and young people in growing urban environments around the world; to help civilisation migrate from hydrocarbons to non-fossil sources of energy and other activities to mitigate the climate crisis; to contribute to the continued eradication of extreme poverty in the World. Read more on Call: European Conference on the Impact of AI and Robotics (ECIAIR 2019)…

Call for Papers

ACM Intelligent Virtual Agents Conference – IVA 2019
2-5 July 2019
Paris, France
https://iva2019.sciencesconf.org

Submission Deadline: March 1, 2019

The 19th ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA) will be held on July 2-5 2019 in Paris, France. The conference is organized by CNRS, Sorbonne University and Paris-Saclay University (France), and sponsored by ACM-SIGAI.

The IVA conference started in 1998 as a workshop on Intelligent Virtual Environments at the European Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Brighton, UK, which was followed by a similar one in 1999 in Salford, Manchester, UK. Then dedicated stand-alone IVA conferences took place in Madrid, Spain, in 2001, Irsee, Germany, in 2003, and Kos, Greece, in 2005. Since 2006 IVA has become a full-fledged annual international event, which was first held in Marina del Rey, California, then Paris, France, in 2007, Tokyo, Japan, in 2008, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, in 2009, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, in 2010, Reykjavik, Iceland, in 2011, Santa Cruz, USA, in 2012, Edinburgh, UK, in 2013, Boston, USA, in 2014, Delft, The Netherlands, 2015, Los Angeles, USA, 2016, Stockholm, Sweden, 2017. IVA 2018 was held in Sydney, Australia.

PAPER SUBMISSION

We invite submissions of research full papers on a broad range of topics, including but not limited to: theoretical foundations of virtual agents, agent modeling and evaluation, agents in games and simulations, and applications of virtual agents. Extended abstracts presenting late breaking work are also welcome.

IVA 2019 is the 19th meeting of an interdisciplinary annual conference and the main leading scientific forum for presenting research on modeling, developing and evaluating Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVAs) with a focus on communicative abilities and social behavior. IVAs are interactive digital characters that exhibit human-like qualities and can communicate with humans and each other using natural human modalities like facial expressions, speech and gesture. They are capable of real-time perception, cognition, emotion and action that allow them to participate in dynamic social environments. In addition to presentations on theoretical issues, the conference encourages the showcasing of working applications.

IVA 2019’s special topic is “Social Learning”, that is learning while interaction socially; agents can learn from the humans and humans can learn from the agents. Agents can take different roles such as tutors, peers, motivators, coaches in training and in serious games. They can act as job recruiter, virtual patient, and nurse to name a few applications. With this topic in mind we are seeking closer engagement with industry and also with social psychologists.

For more information, please visit the IVA 2019 website:
https://iva2019.sciencesconf.org

The papers and extended abstracts will be published in the ACM digital library. All submissions will be reviewed via a double-blind review process. Read more on Call: ACM Intelligent Virtual Agents Conference – IVA 2019…

University of Padova, Aesthetics Lecture Series 2018/2019

“The Appreciator’s Performance. Virtual Reality and The Ontology of Art”
Enrico Terrone (University of Barcelona)

Monday, December 10, 2018, 16.30-18.30 (CET)

The talk will be live-streamed and will remain available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOmB1kCTJ9c&feature=player_embedded

Read more on Call: Free online lecture: “The Appreciator’s Performance. Virtual Reality and The Ontology of Art”…

Call for Papers

32nd International Conference on Computer Animation and Social Agents (CASA 2019)
July 1-3, 2019
Paris, France
https://casa2019.sciencesconf.org

Submission deadlines: March 1, 2019 (full papers), April 15, 2019 (short papers)

The 32nd International Conference on Computer Animation and Social Agents (CASA 2019) will be held on July 1-3, 2019 in Paris, France. The conference is organized by Sorbonne (France), in cooperation with ACM-SIGGRAPH, under guidance of the Computer Graphics Society (CGS).

CASA was founded in 1988 in Geneva, Switzerland, and it is the oldest international conference in computer animation and social agents in the world. In the last ten years, CASA was held in Korea (2008), Netherlands (2009), France (2010), China (2011), Singapore (2012), Turkey (2013), United States (2014), Singapore (2015), Switzerland (2016), Korea (2017), China (2018).

[WARNING: There is a conference called ICCASA 2019 that claims to be the 21st International Conference on Computer Animation and Social Agents in Bali in January 2019. This conference is not the official CASA and is launched by an organization World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology that is unfortunately very famous for its predatory publishing practices. Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Academy_of_Science,_Engineering_and_Technology)

Please note that no paper submitted to ICCASA 2019 in Bali will be published in the journal Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds. Only accepted papers submitted to CASA 2019 in Paris will be published in the journal.]

PAPER SUBMISSION

We invite submissions of research full papers, short papers, and posters on a broad range of topics, including but not limited to Computer Animation, Embodied Agents, Social Agents, Virtual and Augmented Reality, and Visualization (see below for a detailed list).

For more information, please visit the CASA 2019 website:
https://casa2019.sciencesconf.org

28 accepted full papers will be recommended to publish in a special issue of the Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds Journal published by Wiley (CAVW). The short papers and posters will be published in the ACM digital library. All submissions will be reviewed via a double-blind review process. Read more on Call: 32nd International Conference on Computer Animation and Social Agents (CASA 2019)…

Call for participation in an online workgroup to develop an evaluation instrument for social agents

Our vision is to create a validated standardised questionnaire instrument to evaluate human interaction with a social agent. This instrument will help researchers to make claims about people’s perceptions, attitude and beliefs towards their agent. It will allow agents to be compared across user studies, and importantly, it helps in replicating our scientific findings. This is essential for the community if we want to make valid claims about the impact that our social agents can have in domains such as health, entertainment, and education.

Read more on Call: Participation in online workgroup to develop evaluation instrument for social agents…

Call for Abstracts:
Informed Experiences, Designing Consent
Workshop, April 6, 2019
Chicago
https://www.hastac.org/opportunities/cfp-informed-experiences-designing-consent

Submission deadline: January 23, 2019

Informed Experiences, Designing Consent is a symposium interrogating the intersections of consent and the design of interactive media and technologies. The symposium is hosted at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago by the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions and the HASTAC Scholars fellowship program on April 6, 2019. It is organized by Michael Anthony DeAnda, Elisabeth Hildt, Kelly Laas, and Leilasadat Mirghaderi.

Read more on Call: Informed Experiences, Designing Consent Workshop…

Call for Papers

Storytelling and the Body: An Inclusive Interdisciplinary Conference
15th to 16th July 2019
Verona, Italy
http://www.progressiveconnexions.net/interdisciplinary- projects/storytelling/storytelling-and-the-body/conferences/

Submission deadline: 22nd February 2019

We live in an era where stories about bodies – in/visible bodies, glamorous bodies, engineered bodies, trafficked bodies, dismembered bodies, persecuted bodies – are omnipresent. While bodies are literally made of flesh and blood, our understanding of bodies is constructed through fictional and non-fictional stories that shape perceptions of what constitutes the body, how a body should look, how a body should behave, how a body should experience the world and how bodies should interact with each other. By creating these types of norms, stories also shape perceptions of what constitutes deviant, non-normative and otherwise undesirable bodies. Telling stories about the body is therefore an act loaded with ideological, political, sociological, theological, ontological and aesthetic implications.

At the same time, notions of the body have also had a significant impact on the stories cultures have created and passed down through generations. Suffering bodies are central to the foundational narratives of various religious, cultural and political traditions. Genres have emerged with stories about monstrous bodies, sexual and erotic bodies, bodies at war, modified bodies, bodies coming of age and ageing, bodies being tested by nature, bodies enhanced by (bio)technology, politicised bodies and so forth.

At a time when the socio-political landscape is dominated by the construction of barriers among the population based on race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation and class, it is more important than ever to consider how stories about bodies and perceptions of bodies shaped by stories not only foster division and difference, but also inspire cohesion and belonging. Stories help to create tangible and intangible barriers and borders between human beings. At the same time, stories can also foster awareness and compassion for our common humanity in order to transcend borders and overcome barriers. Some barriers are more personal, and therefore less obvious, because they take the form of a physical or psychological issue that somehow limits an individual’s capacity to participate in their community and/or to achieve their full potential.

Accordingly, the second inclusive interdisciplinary Storytelling event seeks to explore the complex, multi-faceted dynamics of this symbiotic relationship between storytelling and the body with a view to forming a publication to engender further collaboration and discussion.

Particular disciplines, practices and professions have inscribed stories and bodies with particular meanings that, when viewed in isolation, can be skewed and limited. Accordingly, the project aims to break down these boundaries through inter-disciplinary engagement that emphasises inclusivity, dialogue and collegiality.

Consistent with its interdisciplinary ethos, the event proposes to step outside the traditional conference setting and offer opportunities for artists, photographers, practitioners, theorists, independent scholars, academics, performers, writers, and others to intermingle, providing platforms for interdisciplinary interactions that are fruitful and conducive to broadening horizons and sparking future projects, collaborations, and connections.

The organisers welcome proposals for presentations, displays, exhibits, round tables, panels, interactive workshops and other activities to stimulate engagement and discussion on any aspect of the interplay between stories, bodies, barriers and borders, particularly in relation to:

• Law, jurisprudence and public policy
• Morality and ethics
• Business/economics
• Education
• Religion and spirituality
• Labour/human capital
• Medicine, health and wellness
• Science and technology
• Social work
• Activism
• Social media
• Film and television
• Theatre
• Literature
• Music
• Fine Art
• Sport
• Popular culture
• Body art: implants, painting, piercings, tattoos, scarification, sculpting, shaping
• Body modifications
• Non-human bodies, the bodies of other species
• Post-human bodies

Read more on Call: Storytelling and the Body: An Inclusive Interdisciplinary Conference…