Convention - Theme
Social Intelligence and Interaction in Animals, Robots and Agents
CONVENTION THEME:
SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE AND INTERACTION IN ANIMALS, ROBOTS AND AGENTS
Humans are above all social animals. For artificially intelligent systems, can it be otherwise?
The AISB 2005 convention with the theme "Social Intelligence and Interaction in Animals, Robots and Agents" intends to facilitate the synthesis of new ideas, encourage new insights as well as novel applications, mediate new collaborations, and provide a context for lively and stimulating discussions in this exciting, truly interdisciplinary, and quickly growing research area that touches upon many deep issues regarding the nature of intelligence in human and other animals, and its potential application to robots and other artifacts.
Intelligence in humans and other animals has many facets and is expressed in a variety of ways in how the individual in its lifetime - or a population on an evolutionary timescale - deals with, adapts to, and co-evolves with the environment. Traditionally, social or emotional intelligence have been considered different from a more problem-solving, often called "rational", oriented view of human intelligence. However, more and more evidence from a variety of different research fields highlight the important role of social, emotional intelligence and interaction across all facets of intelligence in humans.
The Convention theme Social Intelligence and Interaction in Animals, Robots and Agents reflects a current trend towards increasingly interdisciplinary approaches that are pushing the boundaries of traditional science and are necessary in order to answer deep questions regarding the social nature of intelligence in humans and other animals, as well as to address the challenge of synthesizing computational agents or robotic artifacts that show aspects of biological social intelligence. Exciting new developments are emerging from collaborations among computer scientists, roboticists, psychologists, sociologists, cognitive scientists, primatologists, ethologists and researchers from other disciplines, e.g. leading to increasingly sophisticated simulation models of socially intelligent agents, or to a new generation of robots that are able to learn from and socially interact with each other or people. Such interdisciplinary work advances our understanding of social intelligence in nature, and leads to new theories, models, architectures and designs in the domain of Artificial Intelligence or other sciences of the artificial.
New advancements in computer and robotic technology facilitate the emergence of multi-modal "natural" interfaces between computers or robots and people, including embodied conversational agents or robotic pets/assistants/companions that we are increasingly sharing our home and work space with. People tend to create certain relationships with such socially intelligent artifacts, and are even willing to accept them as helpers in healthcare, therapy or rehabilitation. Thus, socially intelligent artifacts are becoming part of our lives, including many desirable as well as possibly undesirable effects, and Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science research can play an important role in addressing many of the huge scientific challenges involved. Keeping an open mind towards other disciplines, embracing work from a variety of disciplines studying human as well as non-human animals, might help create artifacts that might not only do their job, but that do their job right.
The convention hopes to provide a home for state-of-the-art research as well as a discussion forum for innovative ideas and approaches, pushing the frontiers of what is possible and/or desirable in this exciting, growing area. Progress in the field depends on scientific exchange, dialogue and critical evaluations by our peers and the research community, including senior members as well as students who e.g. might bring in fresh viewpoints. For social animals such as humans, the construction of scientific knowledge can't be otherwise.