AISB-50: a convention celebrating 50 years of the AISB

April 1, 2014 - April 4, 2014
Goldsmiths College, University of London

London
United Kingdom

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At this years 50th anniversary AISB annual convention, AISB50 - to be held at Goldsmiths, University of London [1st - 4th] April 2014 - organisers have assembled a stunning group of conference plenary speakers:

To sketch a unifying theme of the four plenary talks, it is one of either critiquing classical (computational AI) and/or embracing elements of [what the philosopher Daniel Dennett has termed] "the romantic approach" to cognition. Ie. Taking seriously [some or all of] the importance of the body in cognition, our social embodiment, enactivist approaches to consciousness and ecological (Gibsonian) approaches to interacting with the world.

1) In this context the opening conference plenary address (scheduled for the morning session of April 1st) is from Professor SUSAN STEPNEY from the University of York, UK, who will be asking "When does a slime mould compute?" Susan's work emphasises the importance of "the body" as the substrate of computation (i.e. the material that computes) and her research touches on foundations of computing (i.e. what it is to compute) and the nascent field that she helped define - "natural computing" (e.g. by slime moulds).

2) The second convention plenary on the morning of Wednesday 2nd April is from Professor LUCY SUCHMAN (University of Lancaster) who will be presenting a lecture entitled "Human(oid) Robot Reconfigurations". Lucy is best known for her anthropological work critiquing classical computational approaches to"Human Computer interfaces (HCI)", but recently Lucy has been at the fore of the campaign for robot arms control (ICRAC), as her theoretical work in HCI makes her sceptical of claims from those who support the deployment of robots that "autonomously kill" on the battlefield.

3) In his plenary on Thursday Professor TERRENCE DEACON (University of Berkeley) will examine the foundational requirements for a "living machine". Terry's recent monograph "Incomplete Nature" has attracted huge international praise - even from erstwhile critics of the "romantic approach" (such as Dennet). In his talk Terry will suggest that a genuine "living machine" must instantiate principles of autogenesis - in which multiple self-organising processes are linked by virtue of each producing the critical boundary constraints that maintain the others.

4) The final convention plenary "Ethical  dilemma of the AnthropoRobotic" is a tele-plenary from the great Chilean polymath Professor HUMBERTO MATURANA (Instituto de Formación Matriztica, Chile). Now 86, Maturana first came to international fame with the 1959 paper "What the frog's eye tells the frog's brain", one of the most cited papers in the Science Citation Index. Over seven decades Humberto's research has touched on cybernetics, languaging, autonomy and enactivism and extends to philosophy, cognitive science and even family therapy.


In addition to the four convention plenary talks highlighted above organisers have also arranged three evening public lectures:

1) John Barnden will be presenting the first public lecture (on Tuesday 1st April) entitled "Creative Metaphor, Mind Out! Or Rather, Mind In". JOHN BARNDEN is Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Birmingham where his research is concerned with investigating how humans perform complex tasks and how to engineer artefacts to do them.

2) The second evening public lecture, "The Painting Fool: Weak and Strong Computational Creativity Research in Action", will be presented by SIMON COLTON. Simon is Professor of Computational Creativity at Goldsmiths, University of London. Computational Creativity is a sub-area of Artificial Intelligence research, which involves the study of software that can take on some of the creative responsibility in arts and science projects.  

3) The final public lecture stems from collaboration between the AISB, Dr. Kate Devlin (Goldsmiths) and the Colour Group of Great Britain; a collaboration\that resulted in the launch of a new AISB symposium entitled "New perspectives on Colour". To celebrate, closing the AISB50 Convention on Friday evening, Dr. HANNAH SMITHSON (Oxford) will be presenting a special lecture entitled "New perspectives on colour from a 13th century account of light, material and rainbows".


In addition to the seven keynote talks there are also a host of other evening activities. These include:

1) Monday 31st March: 5pm: Computer Art Exhibition (Private view) http://doc.gold.ac.uk/~map01mm/A-EYE2014/>. Goldsmiths NAB. Email Mohammad Majid Al-Rifaie for tickets [email protected]

2) Monday 31st March: 6pm: Taylor and Francis "Connection Science" Journal (relaunch) Goldsmiths NAB.

3) Monday 31st March: 7pm: "Contemporary Sensorimotor Theory" Book launch. Goldmsiths NAB.

4) Wednesday 2nd April: 6:45pm-7:45pm : Live Algorithms concert Council chambers, Deptford town Hall https://sites.google.com/site/livealgorithms/live-algorithms-concert>

5) Wednesday 2nd April: 8pm: MIL-|STD-1815 - New play linking Turing Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace and Snow White. http://aisb50.org/mil-std-1815/>.  Contact Sherril Gow for tickets [email protected]>

6) Thursday 3rd April: Conference Dinner to be held at a restaurant with STUNNING views overlooking Tower Brdige, The Tower of London and the Thames.

7) Friday 4th: 6pm NAB Debate -  “What could Robotics contribute to Language Sciences?”


In addition the twenty-four core academic symposia that comprise this 50th convention offer a unique, exciting and celebratory snap-shot of Artificial Intelligence at the golden anniversary party of the AISB. 


        • AI & Games - Daniela Romano, David Moffat, Jeremy Gow
        • The 7th AISB Symposium on Computing and Philosophy: is computation observer-relative? - John Preston, Yasemin J. Erden, Mark Bishop, Slawomir J Nasuto
        • Computational Creativity - Mohammad Majid al-Rifaie, Jeremy Gow, Stephen McGregor
        • Computational Intelligence - Ed Keedwell
        • Computational Scientific Discovery - Mark Addis
        • Consciousness without inner models: A sensorimotor account of what is going on in our heads - Jan Degenaar, J. Kevin O’Regan
        • The Culture of the Artificial - M. Beatrice Fazi, Matthew Fuller
        • Embodied Cognition, Acting and Performance - Sherrill Gow, Mark Bishop, Stephen Hudson
        • Embodied vs. Simulated Behaviour and Cognition: What could Robotics contribute to Language Sciences? - Katerina Pastra, Stephen Cowley, Nikos Mavridis
        • Evolutionary Computing 20 - Larry Bull
        • The Future of Art and Computing: A Post-Turing Centennial Perspective - Anna Dumitriu, S Barry Cooper
        • 2nd Symposium on the History and Philosophy of Programming - Giuseppe Primiero, Liesbeth De Mol
        • Intelligent Systems for Animal Welfare - Anna Zamansky, Clara Mancini, Suzanne Santamaria
        • Live Algorithms - Tim Blackwell, Michael Young
        • Love and Sex with Robots - David Levy, Adrian Cheok
        • Machine Ethics in the Context of Medical and Care Agents - Steve Torrance, Mark Coeckelbergh, Aimee van Wynsberghe
        • Machine Learning, Expressive Movement, Interaction Design, Creative Applications - Frederic Bevilacqua, Baptiste Caramiaux, Rebecca Fiebrink, Marco Gillies, Atau Tanaka
        • Third International Symposium on “New Frontiers in Human-Robot Interaction” - Maha Salem, Kerstin Dautenhahn,
        • New perspectives on colour - Kate Devlin, Mark Bishop
        • Questions, discourse and dialogue: 20 years after Making it Explicit. - Rodger Kibble, Paul Piwek, Geri Popova
        • Re-conceptualizing Mental “Illness”: An Ongoing Dialogue Between Enactive Philosophy and Cognitive Science - Joel Parthemore, Blay Whitby
        • Representation of Reality: Humans, Animals and Machines - Raffaela Giovagnoli
        • Should Artificial Intelligence be used to make kill decisions on the battlefield? - Noel Sharkey
        • Varieties of Enactivism: A Conceptual Geography - Mario Villalobos, Dave Ward, David Silverman


To compliment the standard registration packages available until Sunday 30th March from http://aisb50.org/registration/> there will be some "Day Registrations" and "Associate Day Passes" available each day on the door. 

Organisers hope to see you next week at AISB50.

Twitter: @AISB2014
#AISB50 #AISB2014

Best wishes,
- prof mark bishop (AISB50 General Chair)

Contact: Professor Mark Bishop: [email protected]

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