Category: Allgemein

The International Association for Computing and Philosophy (IACAP) has selected Prof. Dr. Vincent C. Müller for the 2025 Covey Award. The Covey Award recognizes senior scholars with a substantial record of innovative research in the field of computing and philosophy broadly conceived.

Müller is Alexander von Humboldt Professor for Philosophy and Ethics of AI and Director of the Centre for Philosophy and AI Research (PAIR) at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. He is also Visiting Professor at TU Eindhoven, President of the European Society for Cognitive Systems, Chair of the Society for the Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence, and Chair of the euRobotics topics group on ethical, legal and socio-economic issues. Previously, he was Professor at the Technical University of Eindhoven (2019-22) and at Anatolia College/ACT in Thessaloniki (1998-2019), Turing Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute in London (2018-22), University Academic Fellow at the University of Leeds (2016-22), James Martin Research Fellow at the University of Oxford (2011-15), and Stanley J. Seeger Fellow at Princeton University (2005-6).

Müller works mainly on philosophical problems connected to artificial intelligence, both from an ethical and a theoretical perspective. He organises a conference series on the Philosophy of AI (PT-AI/PhAI), co-edits the journal Philosophy of AI, and co-founded the Society for the Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence. In 2014, he organized an IACAP conference in Thessaloniki (Greece). He is editor of the Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence, authored the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Ethics of AI and Robotics, and has two forthcoming books: Can Machines Think? and Artificial Minds (the latter with G. Löhr).

The board recognizes the significant contributions Prof. Dr. Müller has made to the scholarship on issues such as AI and robotic ethics, the nature of computation and cognition, and the philosophical significance of AI, as well as the importance of his sustained role in leading and organizing the philosophical community on these and other topics.

Prof. Dr. Müller will present the Covey Award Keynote Address at IACAP-AISB 2025 conference at University of Twente, The Netherlands, 1-3 July. For more information see https://iacapconf.org/.

Please join us at IACAP-AISB 2025 to congratulate Prof. Dr. Müller on this well-deserved award.

1-3 July 2025, University of Twente, NL

• Register for our conference here

The International Association for Computing and Philosophy (IACAP) and the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour (AISB) will host a joint conference from 1-3 July, 2025 at the University of Twente, NL. Submissions are now closed. A preliminary schedule will be published soon.

On 30 June, 4TU.ethics will host a workshop on AI and neurotechnology at the University of Twente that will directly precede the conference. This workshop, organised in conjunction with member societies IACAP and AISB, also comprises the formal opening of the joint IACAP-AISB conference. The conference will include symposia, talks, posters, and panels on a range of topics from AI to computing. The 4TU.ethics workshop will give space to consider AI and neurotechnology ethics before an already exciting programme of events.

This highly interdisciplinary workshop is free and open to everyone, although priority will be given to members of 4TU.ethics and those who are registered to attend the conference. The workshop will be followed by a reception which doubles as a 4TU.ethics social event, allowing visitors the opportunity to meet up and (further) discuss ideas over drinks. The workshop is planned in association with this special issue on NeuroAI.

• Conference dates: July 1-3
• Conference website: https://iacapconf.org/
• Host Organisation Websites: IACAP.org AISB.org.uk
• Conference location: Enschede, NL.
• Conference host: University of Twente

Deadline for Symposia submissions was January 15, 2025.

Keynote Speakers

• AISB Keynote – Philip Brey
• IACAP Covey Award Address – Vincent C. Müller
• IACAP Simon Award Address – Emily Sullivan

IACAP-AISB-2025 Organising Committee [OC]

• Y. J. Erden (University of Twente)
• Stephen Rainey (TU Delft)
• Rob Wortham (University of Bath)
• Arzu Formanek (Fraunhofer Institute)
• Björn Lundgren (University of Erlangen)
• Hajo Greif (Warsaw University of Technology)

General questions about the conference to: Y. J. Erden and Stephen Rainey

General questions about the symposia to: Y. J. Erden and Stephen Rainey

Questions about symposia interna: to the respective organsiers

Questions about non-symposia presentations, posters and registration technicalities: Arzu Fomanek, Björn Lundgren, Hajo Greif, Brian Ballsun-Stanton

Call for Proposals (archive)

You will find the call for contributions here

Dear Colleagues,

On behalf of the executive board of the International Association for Computing and Philosophy (IACAP), I seek nominations for the 2025 Herbert A. Simon Award.

The Herbert A. Simon Award for Outstanding Research in Computing and Philosophy recognizes scholars at an early stage of their academic career who are likely to reshape debates at the nexus of Computing and Philosophy by their original research. Previous recipients of the award include:

• 2024: Corey Maley (Purdue University)
• 2023: Kathleen Creel (Northeastern University)
• 2022: Björn Lundgren (Utrecht University)
• 2021: Carissa Véliz (University of Oxford) 
• 2020: no award
• 2019: Juan M. Durán (Delft University of Technology)
• 2018: Thomas C. King (Oxford Internet Institute)
• 2017: Andrea Scarantino (Georgia State University)
• 2016: Marcin Milkowski (The Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences)
• 2015: Michael Rescorla (University of California-Santa Barbara)
• 2014: Gualterio Piccinini (University of Missouri-St. Louis)
• 2013: Judith Simon (University of Vienna)
• 2012: Patrick Allo (Vrije Universiteit Brussels)
• 2011: John Sullins (Sonoma State)
• 2010: Mariarosaria Taddeo (University of Hertfordshire and University of Oxford)

The Simon award will be presented at the 2025 joint IACAP and AISB conference organized at the University of Twente, Netherlands. Call for papers and symposia will follow in due course.

Please send your nomination(s) through our online form: https://limesurvey.mq.edu.au/index.php/777597?lang=en

For full consideration, please submit your nomination no later than the end of November. This year, the nominations are first considered by our newly-formed award committee, who will make their recommendations to the IACAP board. If you have any questions concerning the nominations, please reach out to me (bjorn.lundgren@fau.de) and the chair of the awards committee, Tom Powers (tpowers@udel.edu). Please CC Brian (brian.ballsun-stanton@mq.edu.au) for technical queries.

Please note that the award committee will prima facie consider around 10 years from receiving a PhD as a cutoff for whether a scholar is at “an early stage of their academic career.” If you for some reason want to nominate someone who received their PhD more than 10 years ago, please state clearly why the board should make an exception. Alternatively, consider whether the individual contribution is sufficient for consideration for the Covey award.

All the best,
Björn Lundgren
Vice President, International Association of Computing and Philosophy

Dear Colleagues,

On behalf of the executive board of the International Association for Computing and Philosophy (IACAP), we seek nominations for the 2025 Covey Award.

The Covey Award recognizes senior scholars with a substantial record of innovative research in the field of computing and philosophy broadly conceived. Recipients of the prestigious award include:

Please send your nomination(s) through our online form: https://limesurvey.mq.edu.au/index.php/656829?lang=en

For full consideration, please submit your nomination no later than the end of November. This year, the nominations are first considered by our newly-formed award committee, who will make their recommendations to the IACAP board. If you have any questions concerning the nominations, please reach out to me (bjorn.lundgren@fau.de) and the chair of the awards committee, Tom Powers (tpowers@udel.edu). Please CC Brian (brian.ballsun-stanton@mq.edu.au) for technical queries.
All the best,
Björn Lundgren
Vice President, International Association of Computing and Philosophy

Registration and the conference website is now open.

The International Association for Computing and Philosophy’s executive board has selected Associate Professor Corey Maley, for the 2023 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.

Corey is an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at Purdue University. He is interested in understanding what, precisely, computation is. To that end, he is currently working on a theory of computation that is broad enough to incorporate distinct types of computation as species (i.e., both digital and analog) in both artifacts and natural systems (i.e., engineered systems and neural systems). At the same time, this theory needs to be narrow enough to avoid making everything computational, or making computation a mere matter of perspective. Finally, this theory should make clear what the various types of computation have in common such that they are all of the same genera, yet distinct enough to count as separate species of that genera. Much of this project has been informed by Corey’s research into analog computation, which is not (as is commonly thought) essentially about continuity. Revealing the differences between analog and digital computation, as well as their similarities, has illuminated what aspects of computation are specific only to digital computation, and not necessary features of computation in general.

Before Purdue, Corey was a faculty member at the University of Kansas. As an undergraduate at the University of Nebraska, he received a B.S. in Computer Science, Mathematics, and Psychology, and a B.A. in Philosophy. After spending a couple of years in a cognitive neuroscience lab at Washington University in St. Louis, he went to graduate school at Princeton University, where he received a Ph.D. through the Logic and Philosophy of Science track in the Department of Philosophy.

Dr. Maley will present the Simon Award Keynote Address at IACAP 2024 conference in Eugene, Oregon, 8-10 July 2024.

Please join us at IACAP 2024 to congratulate Dr. Corey Maley on this well-deserved award.

The International Association for Computing and Philosophy’s Executive Board has selected Johannes Lenhard for the 2024 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 Lenhard’s significant contribution to our field over several decades.

Johannes Lenhard holds the Heisenberg-Professorship “Philosophy in Science and Engineering” at Rhineland-Palatinate Technical University, Kaiserslautern, Germany, starting in 4/2024. He received his doctoral degree in mathematics from the University of Frankfurt (1998), long before he wrote his habilitation thesis in philosophy at Bielefeld University (2012). How does using a computer change the methodology and epistemology of the sciences? How does computational modeling transform the use of mathematical tools? Lenhard’s research aims at tackling these questions in a way that speaks to philosophers, historians, and scientists alike. He articulates this aim in: “Calculated Surprises. A Philosophy of Computer Simulation”, New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. In May 2024, just in time for the IACAP 2024 conference, his book “Cultures of Prediction. How Engineering and Science Evolve with Mathematical Tools”, coauthored with Ann Johnson (1965-2016), will be published by MIT Press.

Professor Lenhard will present the Covey Award Keynote Address at IACAP 2024 conference in Eugene, Oregon, 8-10 July 2024. For more information see https://www.iacap.org/iacap-2024-call-for-abstracts-and-symposia-proposals-university-of-oregon/

Please join us at IACAP 2024 to congratulate Prof. Lenhard on this well-deserved award.

The International Association for Computing and Philosophy’s executive board has selected Dr. Kathleen Creel for the 2023 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. Creel is an assistant professor at Northeastern University, cross appointed between the Department of Philosophy and the Khoury College of Computer Sciences. Her research explores the moral, political, and epistemic implications of machine learning as it is used in non-state automated decision making and in science. A current project focuses on defining, measuring, and ethically evaluating algorithm-derived outcome homogeneity, namely the extent to which monoculture among decision-making systems causes individuals to receive the same outcomes from multiple decision-makers. In other work, she has developed definitions of transparency for complex computational systems, argued that algorithmic arbitrariness is wrong at scale, and contended that ethically setting decision thresholds in medical settings requires the consideration of individual patient values. 

Before Northeastern, she recieved her BA from Williams College in Computer Science and Philosophy. After working as a software engineer at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, she received her MA from Simon Fraser University’s Philosophy Department and her Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh’s History and Philosophy of Science Department. Most recently, she was the Embedded Ethics postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University. Dr. Creel will present the Simon Award Keynote Address at IACAP 2023 in Prague, 3-5 July 2023.

Please join us at IACAP 2023 to congratulate Dr. Creel on this well-deserved award. More information regarding the conference can be found here: https://www.iacap.org/iacap-2023-prague-czech-republic/

The International Association for Computing and Philosophy’s Executive Board has selected Oron Shagrir for the 2023 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 Shagrir’s significant contribution to our field over several decades; in particular, his contribution to theories of computation.

Oron Shagrir is the Schulman Chair in Philosophy, professor of philosophy and cognitive and brain sciences at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He graduated in mathematics and computer science from the Hebrew University, and received his PhD in philosophy and cognitive science from the University of California, San Diego. He was a visiting fellow at the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh, and an Erskine Fellow at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. He has served the academic community in many different roles, and currently, since 2017, he is the vice president for international affairs of the Hebrew University. He was an associate editor of Cognitive Science and served on the editorial boards of several journals and book series. Professor Shagrir’s current research focuses on the nature of computation and representation, the role of computational approaches in cognitive and brain sciences, and the history of computability. He is the author of The Nature of Physical Computation (Oxford University Press, 2022), the editor, with Jack Copeland and Carl Posy, of Computability: Turing, Gödel, Church, and Beyond (MIT 2013), and the author of numerous papers on computation and the mind.

Professor Oron Shagrir will present the Covey Award Keynote Address at IACAP 2023 conference in Prague, 3-5 July 2023. For more information see https://www.iacap.org/iacap-2023-prague-czech-republic/.

Please join us at IACAP 2023 to congratulate Prof. Shagrir on this well-deserved award.