CFP: Rethinking Successful AI

Call for Abstracts and Panels

International Conference on the theme of  “Rethinking Successful AI”

June 14–16, 2027

The American University of Armenia (AUA), Yerevan, Armenia

Organised by the AUA Center for Ethics in Public Affairs and the Horizon Europe project FORSEE – Forging Successful AI Applications for European Economy and Society

The AUA Center for Ethics in Public Affairs (ETICA), directed by ERA Chair Professor Maria Baghramian, will hold its third international conference on June 14–16, 2027 in Yerevan, Armenia. The theme of the is three day conference is “Rethinking Successful AI”, developed in connection with AUA’s role in the Horizon Europe project FORSEE – Forging Successful AI Applications for European Economy and Society, which examines the conditions under which artificial intelligence can be considered genuinely successful across European economies and societies.

The conference treats successful AI as a contested ethical, political, and philosophical question. Technical performance, economic competitiveness, democratic legitimacy, social justice, and environmental sustainability may all provide criteria of success, but they do not necessarily point in the same direction. We welcome abstracts addressing the question of what could count as successful AI, with particular, but not exclusive, emphasis on the social, political, and environmental conditions that shape how successful AI can be achieved.

The conference will host a number of prominent invited speakers, including:

·       Prof Annalisa Coliva (UC Irvine)

·       Prof Tim Crane (CEU, Vienna)

·       Prof Mario De Caro (Roma Tre)

·       Dr Mary Papazian (Chair ASOF)

·       Prof Mona Simion (Oxford)

We invite:

·       Abstracts of 300–500 words for conference presentations of 20 minutes plus 10 minutes of Q&A, on topics relevant to the theme of the conference, including those listed below.

·       Panel proposals of 500-600 words for 3-5 speakers, discussing the tensions between different approaches to AI success, the institutions through which they are negotiated, and whose interests and values ultimately shape criteria for AI success.

Suggested topics and questions

·       What would it mean for AI to be genuinely successful, and whose understanding of success should prevail?

·       Can we trust artificial systems, or does trust properly extend only to the institutions that build and deploy them?

·       Is the distinction between trust and reliance still useful in relation to large language models and other opaque systems?

·       Does the European Commission’s 2019 framework for trustworthy AI remain adequate in the age of generative AI and, if not, what must change?

·       Can AI-mediated communication strengthen the democratic deliberation, or would it inevitably weaken them?

·       How can we ensure the democratic accountability and sustainability of the infrastructure underpinning AI systems?

·       What ethical and political obligations attach to the environmental footprint of AI infrastructure, and how do these obligations fall across generations and across developed and developing nations?

·       Can AI be used to solve or adapt to environmental and climate problems and, if so, does this justify (or offset) its own environmental impact?

·       Can AI in healthcare advance the interests of women, minorities, and other groups historically marginalised in clinical settings, or does it tend to amplify existing biases?

·       Can AI augment rather than just displace human labour, and what institutional arrangements are needed to secure a pro-worker trajectory?

·       What distinctive contribution can small democracies make to shaping the development of AI, and what are the risks of hosting large-scale AI infrastructure?

·       How should we understand the trustworthiness of institutions that develop and deployAI, as distinct from the trustworthiness of AI systems themselves?

·       What becomes of professional trust and expert judgement - in medicine, law, education, or journalism - when these are mediated by AI?

·       How should we understand digital sovereignty for countries whose AI capacity depends on foreign hardware, software, and investment?

·       Significant public resources are being used to digitise public knowledge. Who owns this knowledge, which languages are used, and whose knowledge becomes visible?

Presentations discussing the work of major philosophers and ethicists on AI are also welcome.

The official languages of the conference are English and Armenian, and abstracts and presentations in either language are welcome. We aim to publish a selection of papers from the conference in ETICA: A Yearbook of Ethics and Public Affairs.

Competitive conference bursaries, covering accommodation and subsistence for the duration of the conference, will be awarded. The conference will be followed by a summer school on the philosophy and ethics of AI. A separate call for expressions of interest in the summer school will be announced in due time, and a limited number of summer school bursaries will also be available.

The conference is primarily an in-person event, but limited online participation may be facilitated for those unable to travel to Yerevan.

Anonymised abstracts in Word format and non-anonymised panel proposals should be sent as email attachments to [email protected], with the subject line “FORSEE Conference”. The submission deadline is 30 January 2027.

Requests for financial support should be sent in a separate email to the same address, stating the reason for the request and enclosing a CV .

Please direct all queries to [email protected]