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Written by Raul Arrabales
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Wednesday, 03 April 2013 |
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First International Workshop on
Artificial ConsciousnessTaormina, Italy, September 2-6, 2013 at ECAL 2013  About this Workshop The workshop is devoted to the issue of artificial consciousness. In biological organisms, consciousness is considered to be the starting point for personal human understanding of the world and consequent intelligent behaviour. Therefore, if one is interested in cognitive architectures which would be biologically inspired, then modeling of consciousness becomes an important computational research topic for the construction of architectures that are strive to have equivalence with the human mind. Furthermore, both life and consciousness can be seen as emerging processes with unique properties and a particular elusive character from the point of view of scientific study. This workshop might be an excellent opportunity to review and advance the research programs focused on finding the common grounds and relationships between life and consciousness. The workshop will provide an overview of the state of the art in the field of machine consciousness. Moreover, it is intended to include contributions from designers of artificially conscious machines. Such contributions address the problem of how a given cognitive architecture should be shaped in order to include the feeling of being aware of something. It will be argued that the knowledge about the qualitative side of consciousness "supervenes" upon the functional knowledge. In other words, if our knowledge is good enough to approach the design of machines with conscious states it is also able to explain the causes of phenomenology in a general sense. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: - computational architectures on machine consciousness - ethics of artificial consciousness - methods of defining and recognising the presence of artificial qualia - setting up a Turing Test for artificial qualia
The First International Workshop on Artificial Consciousness is part of the 12th European Conference on Artificial Life. Designing, Programming, Evolving, Simulation and Synthesis of Natural and Artificial Living Systems (September,2-6 2013, Taormina, Italy).
Call for papersWe invite the submission of papers on the topics of workshop. Submit your research by June 23, 2013 to be considered for the workshop program. Submission is made through the Easychair website. The submitted papers should be no more than 3 pages long (no more than 1000 words). The papers must be prepared for blind referee, with all self-reference and personal data suppressed. The EasyChair login page for ECAL 2013 is at: https://www.easychair.org/account/signin.cgi?conf=ecal2013 In order to access the submission page, the creation of an EasyChair account will be required.
Call for postersPoster sessions consists of posters displayed for informal browsing with opportunities for individual discussion with authors. Important datesMay 15, 2013 Abstract submission deadline
May 31, 2013 Notification of paper acceptance
May 15, 2013 Poster submission deadline
May 31, 2013 Notification of poster acceptance
Program co-chairsIgor Aleksander
Imperial College, London, UK Raul Arrabales Moreno
U-tad, University Centre of Technology and Digital Art, Madrid, Spain Pietro Perconti
University of Messina, Italy Alessio Plebe
University of Messina, Italy
Workshop VenueThe First International Workshop on Artificial Consciousness will be co-located with ECAL 2013, 12th European Conference on Artificial Life, September 2-6 2013, Taormina, Italy. The workshop will take place at "Villa Diodoro" Hotel Taormina, Italy. Hotel Villa Diodoro
Via Bagnoli Croci 75
98039 Taormina, Messina, Italy
T: +39 0942 2 33 12
F: +39 0942 2 33 91
E: diodoro at gaishotels.com
W: http://www.hotelvilladiodoro.com/
W: http://www.hotelvilladiodoro.com/en/how-to-reach-us.html Special IssueRevised versions of selected papers will be taken into consideration for publication on a special issue of the International Journal of Machine Consciousness. RegistrationThe registration can be done via the ECAL 2013 web site. Early registration deadline is June 15, 2013. Late registration: June 16 - September 6, 2013 ScheduleTo be announced. More InformationFOLLOW US on Facebook. Workshop web site. ECAL 2013 web site.  Be first to comment this article |  Add as favourites (46) |  Quote this article on your site | Views: 236
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 03 April 2013 )
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Written by Raul Arrabales
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Sunday, 10 February 2013 |
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=========================================================== POST-DOCTORAL SCHOLARSHIPS
Transverse Activity on Intelligent Robotics University of Aveiro, Portugal =========================================================== Apply by 2013/02/25
Through previous projects, the Transverse Activity on Intelligent Robotics of the University of Aveiro (ATRI/UA) has been working on the integration of reactivity, deliberation, learning and interactivity for intelligent robots. In the framework of RACE ("Robustness by Autonomous Competence Enhancement"), an ongoing project funded by EU FP7, UA is currently collaborating on the development of an artificial cognitive system able to build a high-level understanding of its world by storing and exploiting appropriate memories of its experiences. The project developments will be integrated and demonstrated on a PR2 robot, from Willow Garage. UA is involved in the development of modules concerned with semantic interpretation, recording and conceptualization of experiences of plan-based activities, and human-robot interaction.
In this context, two post-doctoral research scholarships are open for applications. The scholarship holders are expected to contribute to the development of supervised (based human-robot interaction) and unsupervised mechanisms for experience gathering and conceptualization, as well as appropriate memory mechanisms for storing and exploiting experiences and conceptualizations. Experiences and conceptualizations are concerned with objects, scenes and activities.
Applications must be submitted by February 25, 2013, via e-mail to Luís Seabra Lopes (lsl at ua dot pt). The evaluation and ranking of candidates will be communicated via e-mail.
Further information can be found here:
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Written by Raul Arrabales
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Wednesday, 23 January 2013 |
AGI 2013 - Artificial General Intelligence 2013 - Beijing, July 31 - Aug 3 2013: Call for PapersIt is our great pleasure to remind you about the Sixth Conference on Artificial General Intelligence, which will be held in Beijing, China, this upcoming summer. The deadline for paper submission is coming up fairly soon -- March 1. Details about the conference follow.
* Date and Website *
July 31, 2013 – August 3, 2013, Beijing, China
Conference Website: http://www.agi-conference.org/2013/
* Mission *
The AGI conference series (http://www.agi-conf.org/) is the premier international forum for cutting-edge research focusing on the original goal of the AI field — the creation of thinking machines with general intelligence at the human level and ultimately beyond. The AGI conference series is held in cooperation with AAAI, and AGI-13 will co-locate with IJCAI-13.
* Topics *
As in prior AGI conferences, we welcome papers on all aspects of AGI R&D, with the key proviso that each paper should in some way contribute specifically to the development of Artificial General Intelligence.
* Special Session on Cognitive Robotics and AGI *
This Special Session will feature papers giving new AGI ideas inspired by current research in Cognitive Robotics.
* Workshops *
AGI-13 will include the following workshops:
1. Formalizing Mechanisms for Artificial General Intelligence and Cognition (Formal MAGIC)
2. Probability Theory or Not? Practical and Theoretical Concerns on Uncertainty Handling in AGI
See http://www.agi-conference.org/2013/workshops/ for details of the workshops.
* Tutorials / Demonstrations *
Tutorials and demonstrations will be held alongside the conference. For the requirements for proposals, please see the AGI-13 website.
* Keynotes *
Keynote speeches will be delivered by leading scientists in the area of AGI and adjacent disciplines; they will be announced at a later stage at the website of AGI-13.
* Important Dates *
Conference paper submission: March 1, 2013
Workshop/tutorial/demonstration submissions: April 10, 2013
Acceptance Notification: April 20, 2013
Camera-ready copy: May 15, 2013
Conference: July 31, 2013 – August 3, 2013
* Submission Information *
All papers have to be submitted via the conference submission page, to be announced at the AGI-13 website.
The authors should not expect any extension of the deadlines, though special situations can be arranged in a case-by-case manner. If for a special reason your submission will be delayed for a few days, please contact the program committee co-chairs for advance approval.
The conference papers will be published by Springer in the Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (LNAI) series. Paper templates for both LaTeX and Word may be found here: http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs/lncs+authors?SGWID=0-40209-0-0-0 . Use the templates for "LNCS Proceedings and Other Multiauthor Volumes". The LaTeX template (use of which is preferred) is also given directly here:ftp://ftp.springer.de/pub/tex/latex/llncs/latex2e/llncs2e.zip.
Papers must be in English, and submitted in PDF format. There are two types of submissions:
1. Full papers (up to 10 pages): Original research in the above areas.
2. Technical Communications (up to 4 pages): Results and ideas with interest to the AGI audience, including reports about recent own publications, position papers, and preliminary results.
All accepted conference papers will be included in the proceedings, as well as presented at the conference as talks or as posters. At least one author of each accepted paper must register for the conference and present the paper there.
* AGI Summer School *
Collocating with AGI-13, An AGI Summer School will be held in July 17 to 30, 2013. For details, see http://www.mindmakers.org/projects/agi-summer-school-2013
...
We look forward to seeing you in Beijing!
Yours,
Dr. Pei Wang
Temple University
AGI-13 Conference Chair
Dr. Ben Goertzel
Novamente LLC & Hong Kong Polytechnic University
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Written by Raul Arrabales
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Sunday, 13 January 2013 |
Coyote. A Tale of Unexpected Consequences. An intelligent robot coyote longs to be free… Elisabeth Rhett Woods Ekstasis Editions, Sep. 2011.
This science fiction novel is not about consciousness, but one of the most remarkable problems intimately related with it: free will. Written by the poet and writer Elisabeth Rhett Woods, the book uses a close and non technical language, flavored with some poetry, appealing to anyone interested in the subjects of AI and free will. No special knowledge is required to enjoy this story about life, where you, as a human being or as an intelligent sentient machine, can easily identify your fears, wishes and dreams with those of the characters.
The story is based on the development of a new intelligent robot coyote who longs to be free. Wealthy poet, Zoe Neville, decides to make, with the help of friends, both a robot coyote and a film about this robot coyote being used to smuggle a small quantity of marijuana into the United States in a private protest against the invasive spy equipment the U.S. has set up along the border with Canada. Setting the main plot aside, the actual purpose of this work is to explores the development of consciousness, self and personhood, friendship between women and men, freedom, and what it means in practice to be free.
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 13 January 2013 )
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Written by Raul Arrabales
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Wednesday, 09 January 2013 |
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We are looking for up to three Postdoctoral Research Fellows to work on a new FP7-funded project STRANDS "Spatio-Temporal Representations and Activities for Cognitive Control in Long-Term Scenarios". STRANDS will develop new technologies to allow mobile robots to acquire and use semantic maps of indoor spaces that capture not just spatial information (walls, doors etc.), but also the spatio-temporal structure of the dynamics which change such spaces (e.g. human activities with objects). To do this, these robots must be able learn and operate reliably in long-term deployments (from weeks to months of autonomous activity). Our robots will be tested over long-term operation in real-world care and building security applications.
STRANDS is coordinated by the Intelligent Robotics Lab (IRLab, http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/go/irlab ) in the School of Computer Science at the University of Birmingham, UK. As a member of the STRANDS team you will be working with five other leading EU research groups and two industrial partners. You will work as part of a team of six researchers on STRANDS at Birmingham, and around 30 researchers in STRANDS as a whole. The work will be performed in the world-class research environment provided by the IRLab, alongside exceptional researchers on national and EU projects, including two further new EU projects starting in early 2013.
The challenging tasks to be undertaken at Birmingham in STRANDS include learning qualitative spatial representations of indoor environments; planning the sequence of observations a mobile robot should make to learn and recognise activities (i.e. active spatio-temporal mapping); and the integration of motivation, learning and temporal behaviour planning capabilities into a rich architecture for long-term robot perception and action. Applicants are be expected to play a lead role creating original solutions to one or more of these problems, with exact responsibilities being decided on appointment depending on interest and experience.
To apply, you should have completed a PhD in AI, Robotics or a related discipline. You should ideally have expertise in one of AI planning, decision theoretic planning, view planning, object search, qualitative spatial reasoning or probabilistic robotics more generally. You should have a high level of analytical ability and computational skills, including programming and knowledge of standard robotics software.
The posts are available from April 1st 2013 for up to 48 months. Appointments will be made at the appropriate salary grade based on qualifications and experience. Salaries range from £27,854 a year up to £44,607 a year, with potential progression to £50,186.
Informal enquiries may be made to Project Coordinator Dr Nick Hawes (
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
) and Dr Jeremy Wyatt (
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
) in the School of Computer Science. Please mark your email “STRANDS Fellowship Enquiry”.
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Written by Raul Arrabales
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Wednesday, 26 December 2012 |
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Paper submissions and special session proposals are invited to the International Conference on Brain Inspired Cognitive Systems
TIMEFRAME • February 1st, 2013: Due date for special session proposals • February 1st, 2013: Due date for conference papers • March 5th, 2013: Notification of paper acceptance to authors • March 20th, 2012: Camera-ready deadline for accepted papers • June 9-11th, 2013: Conference dates
PAPER SUBMISSION Papers submitted to BICS 2013 must be single-spaced in one column format within an area of 122 mm x 193 mm with 10-point Times-Roman font. Each paper must not exceed 10 pages including figures and references (papers beyond 8 pages are subject to page surcharge). All papers must be written in English using the Springer LNCS (Lecture Notes in Computer Science) style, including all tables, figures, and references.
SPECIAL SESSION SUBMISSION The BICS 2013 technical program will include special sessions. Their aim is to provide a complementary flavor to the regular sessions and should include topics of interest to the BICS community. Prospective organizers of special sessions should submit proposals indicating: • title of the session; • rationale of the need for the special session at BICS. The rationale should stress the novelty of the topic and/or its multidisciplinary flavor, and must explain how it is different from the subjects covered by the regular sessions; • short biography of the organizers; • list of 5-6 contributed papers (including titles, authors, contact information of the corresponding author). Proposals are due on or before 1 February 2013 and should be sent via e-mail (in either pdf or plain ascii text form) to the Special Sessions Chairs (Erik Cambria, Sanqing Hu, and Dongbin Zhao). Proposals will be evaluated based on the timeliness of the topic, the qualifications of the organizers and the authors of the papers proposed in the session. Sessions in which three or more papers are co-authored by the same person, or by authors from the same group will not be accepted. In its decision, the committee will try to realize a balance of the topics across the technical areas represented in BICS. Notification of acceptance will be sent to the organizers by 15 February 2013. Authors of papers included in successful proposals should submit a manuscript on or before 1 February 2013. Manuscripts should conform to the formatting and electronic submission guidelines of regular BICS papers. When they submit papers, there is a choice to indicate that their papers are special session papers. All papers will undergo peer review process. It is the responsibility of the organizers to ensure that their special session meets the BICS quality standards. If, at the end of the review process, less than four papers are accepted, the session will be cancelled and the accepted papers will be moved to regular sessions.
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