Tag: Conference

Posted on

Proceedings of Robophilosophy 2022

In January 2023, the proceedings of Robophilosophy 2022 were published, under the title “Social Robots in Social Institutions”. “This book presents the Proceedings of Robophilosophy 2022, the 5th event in the biennial Robophilosophy conference series, held in Helsinki, Finland, from 16 to 19 August 2022. The theme of this edition of the conference was Social Robots in Social Institutions, and it featured international multidisciplinary research from the humanities, social sciences, Human-Robot Interaction, and social robotics. The 63 papers, 41 workshop papers and 5 posters included in this book are divided into 4 sections: plenaries, sessions, workshops and posters, with the 41 papers in the ‘Sessions’ section grouped into 13 subdivisions including elderly care, healthcare, law, education and art, as well as ethics and religion. These papers explore the anticipated conceptual and practical changes which will come about in the course of introducing social robotics into public and private institutions, such as public services, legal systems, social and healthcare services, or educational institutions.” (Website IOS Press) The proceedings contain the paper “Robots in Policing” by Oliver Bendel and the poster “Tamagotchi on our couch: Are social robots perceived as pets?” by Katharina Kühne, Melinda A. Jeglinski-Mende, and Oliver Bendel. More information via www.iospress.com/catalog/books/social-robots-in-social-institutions.

Posted on

CfP for Robophilosophy 2022

Robophilosophy 2022 is the fifth event in the biennial Robophilosophy Conference Series. The first call for papers (CfP) was published in November 2021, and the second at the end of 2021. The extended deadline for submissions of extended abstracts and full papers is February 28, 2022. The event “will explore the societal significance of social robots for the future of social institutions with its usual broad scope, embracing both theoretical and practical angles” (CfP Robophilosophy). It “is an invitation to philosophers and other SSH researchers, as well as researchers in social robotics and HRI, to investigate from interdisciplinarily informed perspectives whether and how social robotics as an interdisciplinary endeavour can contribute to the ability of our institutions to perform their functions in society” (CfP Robophilosophy). Topics of interest include robots and social institutions in general, robots in law and policing, robots in healthcare, and robots and social justice. The conference will be held at the University of Helsinki in Finland from August 16-19, 2022. More information via www.rp2022.org.

Posted on

Next ROBOPHILOSOPHY in Helsinki

One of the world’s most important conferences for robot philosophy (aka robophilosophy) and social robotics, ROBOPHILOSOPHY, took place from 18 to 21 August 2020, not in Aarhus (Denmark) as originally planned, but – due to the COVID 19 pandemic – in virtual form. Organizers and presenters were Marco Nørskov and Johanna Seibt. A considerable number of the lectures were devoted to machine ethics, such as “Moral Machines” (Aleksandra Kornienko), “Permissibility-Under-a-Description Reasoning for Deontological Robots” (Felix Lindner) and “The Morality Menu Project” (Oliver Bendel). The keynotes were given by Selma Šabanović (Indiana University Bloomington), Robert Sparrow (Monash University), Shannon Vallor (The University of Edinburgh), Alan Winfield (University of the West of England), Aimee van Wynsberghe (Delft University of Technology) and John Danaher (National University of Ireland). In his outstanding presentation, Winfield was sceptical about moral machines, whereupon Bendel made it clear in the discussion that they are useful in some areas and dangerous in others, and emphasized the importance of machine ethics for the study of machine and human morality, a point with which Winfield again agreed. The last conference was held in Vienna in 2018. Keynote speakers at that time included Hiroshi Ishiguro, Joanna Bryson and Oliver Bendel. The next ROBOPHILOSOPHY will probably take place in 2022 at the University of Helsinki, as the organisers announced at the end of the event.