The 4th AISB Symposium on Computing and Philosophy:
Computing, Philosophy and the Question of Bio-Machine Hybrids

July 2nd to 6th, 2012

University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

As part of the AISB/IACAP World Congress 2012 in honour of Alan Turing

Organised by

• Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour (AISB)
• International Association for Computing and Philosophy (IACAP)

Website: http://extranet.smuc.ac.uk/events-conferences/AISB-symposium-computing-philosophy/Pages/default.aspx

Poster: http://extranet.smuc.ac.uk/events-conferences/AISB-symposium-computing-philosophy/Documents/AISB-Symposium-2012-Poster.pdf

Symposium Overview

Turing’s famous question ‘can machines think?’ raises parallel questions about what it means to say of us humans that we think. More broadly, what does it mean to say that we are thinking beings? In this way we can see that Turing’s question about the potential of machines raises substantial questions about the nature of human identity. ‘If’, we might ask, ‘intelligent human behaviour could be successfully imitated, then what is there about our flesh and blood embodiment that need be regarded as exclusively essential to either intelligence or human identity?’. This and related questions come to the fore when we consider the way in which our involvement with and use of machines and technologies, as well as their involvement in us, is increasing and evolving. This is true of few more than those technologies that have a more intimate and developing role in our lives, such as implants and prosthetics (e.g. neuroprosthetics).

The Symposium will cover key areas relating to developments in implants and prosthetics, including:

• How new developments in artificial intelligence (AI) / computational intelligence (CI) look set to develop implant technology (e.g. swarm intelligence for the control of smaller and smaller components)
• Developments of implants and prosthetics for use in human, primate and non-primate animals
• The nature of human identity and how implants may impact on it (involving both conceptual and ethical questions)
• The identification of, and debate surrounding, distinctions drawn between improvement or repair (e.g. for medical reasons), and enhancement or “upgrading” (e.g. to improve performance) using implants/prosthetics
• What role other emerging, and converging, technologies may have on the development of implants (e.g. nanotechnology or biotechnology)

But the story of identity does not end with human implants and neuroprosthetics. In the last decade, huge strides have been made in ‘animat’ devices. These are robotic machines with both active biological and artificial (e.g. electronic, mechanical or robotic) components. Recently one of the organisers of this symposium, Slawomir Nasuto, in partnership with colleagues Victor Becerra, Kevin Warwick and Ben Whalley, developed an autonomous robot (an animat) controlled by cultures of living neural cells, which in turn were directly coupled to the robot’s actuators and sensory inputs. This work raises the question of whether such ‘animat’ devices (devices, for example, with all the flexibility and insight of intelligent natural systems) are constrained by the limits (e.g. those of Turing Machines) identified in classical a priori arguments regarding standard ‘computational systems’.

Both neuroprosthetic augmentation and animats may be considered as biotechnological hybrid systems. Although seemingly starting from very different sentient positions, the potential convergence in the relative amount and importance of biological and technological components in such systems raises the question of whether such convergence would be accompanied by a corresponding convergence of their respective teleological capacities; and what indeed the limits noted above could be.

Suggested topics (in relation to computing and philosophy as pertaining to bio-machine hybrids include, but are not limited to):

• Cognitive science;
• Artificial intelligence; the Turing test; machine understanding; Searle’s Chinese Room argument;
• Foundations of computing;
• Simulation of behaviour and agency;
• Ambient intelligence;
• Artificial life; computational biology;
• Implant technology;
• Biosemiotics;
• Constructivism;
• Second order cybernetics;
• Enactivism and sensorimotor theories of perception;
• Converging technologies (e.g. ICT, Nanotechnology, etc.);
• Information / computer / nanotechnology ethics;
• Cognitive / epigenetic robotics.

Symposium Organisers

Prof. Mark Bishop, Department of Computing, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK: email: [email protected]
Dr Yasemin J. Erden, CBET, St Mary’s University College, Twickenham, UK: email: [email protected]
Dr Slawomir J Nasuto, School of Systems Engineering, University of Reading, Reading, UK: email: [email protected]
Dr Kevin Magill, Department of Philosophy, University of Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton, UK: email: [email protected]

Questions should be directed in the first instance to: [email protected]

Submission and Publication Details

Submissions must be full papers.

Submitted contributions should be sent via EasyChair: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=aisb12-cp

Text editor templates from a previous convention can be found here.

Submitted papers are limited to eight pages.

Each paper will receive at least two reviews.

Selected papers will be published in the general proceedings of the AISB Convention, with the proviso that at least ONE author attends the symposium in order to present the paper and participate in general symposium activities.

Following the symposium, authors of a selection of the best papers will be invited to submit an extended version of the work to a proposed special issue (SI) of the Philosophy and Technology journal in 2013. Confirmation of the SI of this journal, and further details about revised submissions will be circulated in August 2012.

Important Dates

Full paper submission deadline: 1 February 2012

Notification of acceptance/rejection decisions: 1 March 2012

Final versions of accepted papers (Camera ready copy): 30 March 2012

Convention: 2-6 July 2012

Symposium dates: Thursday 5 and Friday 6th July 2012

Additional Information​

Joint AISB / IACAP Congress

The Congress serves both as the year’s AISB Convention and the year’s IACAP conference. The Congress has been inspired by a desire to honour Alan Turing, and by the broad and deep significance of Turing’s work to AI, to the philosophical ramifications of computing, and to philosophy and computing more generally. The Congress is one of the events forming the Alan Turing Year.

The intent of the Congress is to stimulate a particularly rich interchange between AI and Philosophy on any areas of mutual interest, whether directly addressing Turing’s own research output or not. The Congress will consist mainly of a number of collocated Symposia on specific research areas, interspersed with Congress-wide refreshment breaks, social events and invited Plenary Talks. All papers other than the invited Plenaries will be given within Symposia.

Conference proceedings

Please note: there will be a separate proceedings for each symposium, produced before the Congress, and available to conference delegates. Each delegate at the Congress will receive, on arrival, a memory stick containing the proceedings of all symposia.

Awards and bursaries

In previous years there have been awards for the best student paper, and limited student bursaries. These details will be circulated as and when they become available.

Programme Committee

Prof Igor Aleksander (Imperial College London, UK)
Dr Paul Baxter (Plymouth University, UK)
Dr Victor M. Becerra (University of Reading, UK)
Prof Mark Bishop (Goldsmiths, University of London, UK)
Dr Mark Coeckelbergh (University of Twente, NL)
Dr Edoardo Datteri (University of Milano-Bicocca, IT)
Dr Yasemin J. Erden (St Mary’s University College, UK)
Dr Tom Froese (The University of Tokyo, JP)
Dr Phil Hutchinson (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)
Dr Stanislao Lauria (Brunel University, UK)
Dr Rui Loureiro (Middlesex University, UK)
Dr Peter J Lovatt (University of Hertfordshire, UK)
Dr Kevin Magill (University of Wolverhampton, UK)
Dr Richard J. Mitchell (University of Reading, UK)
Dr Slawomir J Nasuto (University of Reading, UK)
Prof Ian Sillitoe (The University of Wolverhampton, UK)
Dr Porfírio Silva (Institute for Systems and Robotics Lisbon, PT)
Dr Mark Sprevak (University of Edinburgh, UK)
Prof Steve Torrance (University of Sussex, UK)

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