Dear Colleagues,

It is my privilege to announce that the International Association for Computing and Philosophy’s executive board has selected Dr. Björn Lundgren for the 2022 Herbert A. Simon Award for Outstanding Research in Computing and Philosophy, which specifically recognizes scholars at an early stage of their academic career whose research is likely to reshape debates at the nexus of Computing and Philosophy.

Dr Lundgren is a postdoctoral researcher at Utrecht University (the Netherlands). He was awarded a Ph.D. from the Royal Institute of Technology (Stockholm, Sweden) in 2018. The year after he started working at the Institute for Futures Studies (Stockholm, Sweden), leading a project on ethical and societal aspects of the implementation of self-driving vehicles (with funding from the Swedish Transport Administration). During his time at IFFS, Lundgren also consulted for the University of Twente in two EU-projects (SHERPA and SIENNA), mostly working on ethical guidelines for AI and robotics. In 2020, Lundgren left IFFS for a postdoc at Umeå University (Sweden) in a project on AI, Democracy and Self-Determination. Lundgren is currently working in a research program on the Ethics of socially disruptive technologies (ESDiT). His main focus is on methods of ethics of technology in general, and socially disruptive technologies, in particular. This methodological focus can be found in many of his previous works, which ranges over topics such as information, information security, anonymity, privacy, the right to privacy, decision under risk and uncertainty, self-driving vehicles, and AI.

Dr. Lundgren will present the Simon Award Keynote Address at IACAP 2022, Santa Clara University, San Jose, CA. Please join us at IACAP 2022 to congratulate Dr. Lundgren on this well-deserved award. More information regarding the conference can be found here. https://www.iacap.org/iacap-2022-cfa/

best regards,
—
Dr Steve McKinlay
Executive Director, International Association for Computing and Philosophy

Dear Colleagues,

It is my privilege to announce that the International Association for Computing and Philosophy’s Executive Board has selected Shannon Vallor for the 2022 Covey Award recognizing senior scholars with a substantial record of innovative research in the field of computing and philosophy broadly conceived. The board recognised Professor Vallors significant contribution to our field, both in academic as well as public spheres over the last two decades.  

Shannon Vallor is the Baillie Gifford Professor in the Ethics of Data and Artificial Intelligence in the University of Edinburgh’s Department of Philosophy. She serves as Director of the Centre for Technomoral Futures in the Edinburgh Futures Institute and is a Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute. Professor Vallor’s research explores how emerging technologies reshape human moral and intellectual character, and maps the ethical challenges and opportunities posed by new uses of data and artificial intelligence. Her work includes advising academia, government and industry on the ethical design and use of AI. Her current project examines responsibility gaps in the governance of autonomous systems, as part of the UKRI Trustworthy Autonomous Systems programme. She is the author of Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting (Oxford University Press, 2016) and editor of the Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Technology (2022).She is the recipient of multiple awards for teaching, scholarship and public engagement, including the 2015 World Technology Award in Ethics.

Prof. Vallor will present the Covey Award Keynote address at the IACAP 2022 conference at Santa Clara University, San Jose, CA. USA, July 22-24, 2022.  See https://www.iacap.org/iacap-2022-cfa/ for more information. 

Please join us in congratulating Prof. Vallor on this well deserved award. 
best regards, 

Steve McKinlay
Executive Director, International Association for Computing and Philosophy

CEPE/IACAP Joint Conference 2021: The Philosophy and Ethics of Artificial Intelligence

Call for Abstracts

Conference: 5-9 July, 2021
Location: Hamburg, Germany
Abstracts due: October 1, 2020

Keynote Speakers: TBA

Advances in artificial intelligence, partly due to the availability of massive amounts of data, have recently stirred both public and academic debates about the opportunities, but also the risks posed by these developments. While debates around strong AI often appear to oscillate between utopian dreams and dystopian nightmares, developments in the context of so-called weak AI raise more mundane, yet more pressing ethical and philosophical questions. Automated decision-making, crime prediction, facial recognition, or deep fakes: technological advances and the increasing reliance on often opaque software systems raise thorny questions. The recent controversies around Covid-19 tracing or so-called immunity apps may serve as a telling example: from issues around surveillance and privacy over justice and discrimination to freedom and (relational) autonomy – the development and deployment of information and communication technologies poses numerous ethical, social, and political questions to be addressed from different philosophical perspectives.

The International Society of Ethics and Information Technology (INSEIT.net) and the International Association for Computing and Philosophy (IACAP.org) are delighted to announce that submissions are now being accepted for their joint CEPE/IACAP conference on July 5-9, 2021, hosted by the Department of Informatics, Universität Hamburg, Germany. The meeting is organized by the Research Group for Ethics in Information Technology (http://uhh.de/inf-eit), chaired by Prof. Dr. Judith Simon (http://uhh.de/inf-simon). The philosophy and ethics of artificial intelligence will serve as a guiding theme for the CEPE/IACAP Joint Conference 2021. While submissions to this broad topic are encouraged, other topics within the field of philosophy of computing and computer ethics are also very welcome.

We invite submissions of extended abstracts for individual papers and proposals for symposia.

Submission:

Extended abstracts and proposals for symposia shall be submitted via https://www.conferences.uni-hamburg.de/e/cepe-iacap2021 by October 1, 2020.

Individual Papers: Submissions should

• be prepared for blind review;
• provide an extended abstract of 1000-1500 words;
• provide a short abstract of 150-200 words suitable for inclusion in the conference program.

Symposia/Panels: Proposals should indicate

• the title of the proposed symposium;
• a description of the topic (500-800 words);
• the list of participants;
• the number of slots required. A regular slot for symposia is 90 minutes. In exceptional cases, two slots may be available for a symposium.

Important Dates:

Extended abstract and symposia proposals due: October 1, 2020

Reviews due: November 15, 2020

Paper and symposia acceptance/rejection: November 30, 2020

Final full paper due: May 1, 2021

Conference: July 5-9, 2021

Full Papers:

Upon acceptance of the extended abstracts, full papers of 5000-7000 words are invited for submission. A selection of these submitted papers will be invited for joint submission to a journal, possibly to be published in a special issue (depending on the acceptance of SI proposals). Submission of full papers is not mandatory unless (a) you want to participate in the best paper award (see below) or (b) you want your paper to be considered for submission to relevant journals.

Best Paper Award:

There will be two best paper awards: one for all submissions and one specifically for graduate students. The graduate students, of course, are also eligible for the general best paper award. Please indicate in your submission that you are a graduate student to qualify for the student best paper award.

Mentoring Program:

There will be a dedicated mentoring session in the program where graduate students or junior faculty members can meet with mentors to discuss their research. If you are interested in such a mentoring program as a) a mentor or b) a mentee, please indicate this in your proposal. The availability of mentors as well as the matching between mentors and mentees will be decided upon after the review process has been finalised.

Program Committee: TBA

Fees:

Further details on the conference registration and payment options will be provided later on. While having to cover the costs for the conference, we will try to keep the fees as low as possible. Students and members of INSEIT and IACAP will receive a reduced registration fee.

Website:

All further information will be provided through the conference website at http://uhh.de/inf-cepe-iacap2021.

E-mail:

You can contact us by email at cepe-iacap2021@informatik.uni-hamburg.de.

Best wishes,
The Organizing Committee

The International Association for Computing and Philosophy (IACAP) announces that submissions are now being accepted for the IACAP 2019: Distributed Computing and Epistemic Logic Track, June 5, to be held at and sponsored by the Institute of Mathematics, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). This special track is being organized by,

Alexandru Baltag: ILLC Amsterdam, The Netherlands
(http://www.illc.uva.nl/People/show_person.php?Person_id=Baltag+A.B.)

Sergio Rajsbaum: Institute of Mathematics, UNAM.
(http://www.matem.unam.mx/~rajsbaum/)

This year the IACAP Annual Meeting will include a special, one-day track on research related to computing and epistemic logic, with special interest in concurrency; computing systems where multiple sequential computers or microprocessors interact. Knowledge-theoretic tools have been applied to theoretical and practical problems in distributed and multi-agent system, both to design solutions and to prove impossibility results. They and have turned out to have interesting connections with topology. From the computability perspective, fault-tolerant distributed systems are of a very different nature than Turing machines. We are looking to have interesting discussions, presentations, and foster further collaborations on these topics. The track will include introductory talks to the exciting new interconnections between computing, logic and philosophy. We invite submissions of extended abstracts for this track.

Important Dates:

Paper Presentations (Extended Abstracts):

Submission: March 24, 2019

Notification of Acceptance: May 4, 2019

Confirmed participants:

Alexandru Baltag, ILLC Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Armando Castañeda, Instituto de Matematicas, UNAM, Mexico
David Fernández-Duque, Universiteit Gent, Belgium
Sergio Rajsbaum, Instituto de Matemáticas, UNAM, Mexico
Aldo Iván Ramírez-Abarca, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Sonja Smets, ILLC Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Ana Lucia Vargas-Sandoval, ILLC Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Fernando Velázquez-Quesada, Amsterdam University, The Netherlands

Paper submissions should be provided at:

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=iacap2019

Submissions for paper presentation should:

1. Explicitly indicate (in the title or as the first sentence of the abstract) that it is a submission for the Distributed Computing and Epistemic Logic Track;
2. Be prepared for blind review;
3. Provide an extended abstract of 800-1200 words; and,
4. Provide a short abstract of 150-250 words suitable for inclusion in a program.

Dear Colleagues,

It is my privilege to announce that the International Association for Computing and Philosophy’s Executive Board has selected Deborah G. Johnson for the Covey Award recognizing senior scholars with a substantial record of innovative research in the field of computing and philosophy broadly conceived.

Deborah G. Johnson recently retired as the Anne Shirley Carter Olsson Professor of Applied Ethics in the STS Program within the Department of Engineering and Society. She continues to hold that title with emeritus status and she continues to be active in research and occasional teaching.

During her career, Johnson has taught engineering students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Georgia Institute of Technology, and the University of Virginia. Her teaching and her research have been broadly focused on Computer/Information Technology Ethics, Engineering Ethics, STS Theory and Policy Implications, and most recently she has been writing about Ethics, AI, and Robots.

Johnson published one of the first textbooks on computer ethics in 1985. The book was revised three times and translated into multiple languages. Drawing on her training in philosophy and ethics, she has published on a wide range of topics all directly or indirectly having to do with ethical, social, and policy implications of technology, especially information technology. Her publications include 7 books and over 80 pieces in journals, books, and other venues.

Johnson’s research has repeatedly received support from the National Science Foundation. Most recently she received awards focused on Surveillance and Transparency as Sociotechnical Systems of Accountability and a project on Ethics for Developing Technologies: An Analysis of Artificial Agents. She is currently working with a team of researchers at the University of Bergen who have funding from the Norwegian Research Council to explore the social implications of visual surveillance technologies in the news media.

Active in professional organizations, Johnson has served as President of the Society for Philosophy and Technology, President of the International Society for Ethics and Information Technology (INSEIT), Treasurer of the ACM Special Interest Group on Computers and Society, Chair of the American Philosophical Association Committee on Computers and Philosophy, and a member of the Executive Board of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics.

In 2009 Johnson received the Doctor of Philosophy honoris causa from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences of Linköping University in Linköping, Sweden. In 2004 Johnson received the John Barwise Prize from the American Philosophical Association for contributions to computing and philosophy; in 2001 she received the Sterling Olmsted Award from the Liberal Education Division of the American Society for Engineering Education; and in 2000 she received the Making a Difference award from the ACM Special Interest Group on Computers and Society (SIGCAS).

Due to a scheduling conflict, the Covey Award will be presented to Professor Johnson in absentia with her letter of acceptance preceding Dr. Edward N. Zalta’s Keynote Address. Please join us at IACAP 2018, June 21-23, Warsaw to extend Professor Johnson congratulations on this well-deserved award for her outstanding contributions to computing and philosophy.

http://www.iacap.org/iacap-2018/

Best,

Don Berkich
IACAP President