CFP: Robophilosophy 2022: Social Robots in Social Institutions

The aim of social robotics is to create entities capable of ‘social’ interaction with humans. This raises deep questions about expectable conceptual and practical change at the level of social institutions such as families, governments, legal systems, healthcare services, universities, or business corporations. Social institutions emerge from social practices that coordinate activities by establishing formal and not merely informal rules, explicitly stating the goals and values they serve. In addition, rules of institutions assign offices and office-dependent entitlements and role-responsibilities to position holders, and manage the material resources necessary for practices. Institutions offer individuals incentives and sanctions to maintain their stability and to serve their goals. They also enable individuals to cooperate and provide a platform to resolve disagreements and conflicts among interests. The central aim of the conference is to understand and to critically evaluate how social robotics is transforming institutional structures, institutional practices, and the institution–citizen interaction for instance in the fields of social and health care, education, science, media, and law.

Robophilosophy 2022, the fifth event in the biennial Robophilosophy Conference Series (http://www.robo-philosophy.org) 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. The event 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 insititutions to perform their functions in society.

CONFIRMED PLENARIES

• Rachid Alami, Laboratory for Analysis and Architecture of Systems, University of Toulouse, France.
• Virginia Dignum, Department of Computing Science, Umeå University, Sweden.
• Maja Matarić, Center for Robotics and Embedded Systems (CRES), University of Southern California, USA.
• Seumas Miller, Australian Graduate School of Policing and Security Studies, Charles Sturt University, Australia.
• Catrin Misselhorn, Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen, Germany.
• Sven Nyholm, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.

IMPORTANT DATES

• Deadlines for submissions
  • Workshop descriptions: February 15, 2022
  • Posters, extended abstracts, full papers: February 28, 2022
• Notification of acceptance: April 15, 2022
• Final papers due: June 15, 2022
• Registration opens March 15, 2022
• General registration closes: June 30, 2022
• Late registration closes: August 10, 2022

TOPICS OF INTEREST (non-exclusive list)

• Robots and social institutions in general
• Robots in law and policing
• Robots in healthcare
• Robots and art
• Robots in education
• Robots and social justice
• Social roles and norms for robots
• Institutional design in light of AI and robots
• Institutional robotics
• Robots as social construction workers

SUBMISSION CATEGORIES

• Extended abstracts (1000–2000 words) for short research papers (4000–5000 words)
• Abstracts for poster presentations (1000–2000 words)
• Workshop descriptions (1000–3000 words, describing topic, format, and speakers)

FURTHER INFORMATION

• www: http://www.rp2022.org
• e-mail: [email protected]

CONTACT

Main organizers: Raul Hakli ([email protected]), Pekka Mäkelä ([email protected]), and the RADAR group (http://radar.cs.helsinki.fi).