Topic

After several decades of developments and research that was mostly restricted to laboratories and academic realms, intelligent agents now finally they enter people´s homes. Autonomous systems using artificial intelligence (AI) to communicate with humans will soon be a part of everyday life. Systems like Siri, Alexa or Cortana can already be found in numerous households, enabling the whole family to operate home applications (e.g., switching on the light) or use the Internet (e.g., reading the weather forecast). Other applications (like companion agents for ambient assisted living or pedagogical agents) assist vulnerable groups such as the elderly in daily living or support learning in young children. Therefore, it is time to take a holistic look at the impact this has on people´s lives. It needs to be scrutinized how the emerging presence of intelligent artificial interaction partners influences human communication and relationships. There is an acute need to not only involve disciplines like computer science and psychology, but more broadly address ethics and law-related questions. Therefore, the workshop aims to bring together researchers who from different disciplinary perspectives want to contribute to analyzing the impact of the soon ubiquitous autonomous systems.

As intelligent interfaces and agents are now entering people´s homes, it is hugely relevant for the community to discuss the implications of ubiquitous dialogue with machines also considering ethics and law-related issues. The workshop therefore wants to provide a forum for related discussions and make the community aware of chances and pitfalls.

Application

Who should apply?

The workshop is targeted at anyone interested in and conducting research on interactive assistants that interact with users in real life settings. We expect position papers from researchers from the disciplines of computer science, psychology, sociology, ethics and law.

How to apply?

Attendees should submit a short position paper (2-4 pages). The paper can include reflections on impact on users´ lives from any of the relevant discipline´s perspectives or include interdisciplinary approaches. It might refer to own empirical work or experiences made. It should touch on either social, ethical or law-related implications of the dissemination of interactive assistants in the wild.

As we aim for a broad discussion among community members, we will filter the submissions mainly for relevance and quality.

Please use the “ACM standard” format which is also employed by the IVA conference
(https://iva2019.sciencesconf.org/resource/page/id/9)

Please submit your paper (pdf) via EMail to: skopp@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de

Schedule

Submission of 2-page position paper: April 15th

Notification of acceptance: April 22nd

Early rate (full conference) ends: April 29th

Attendees and costs

Attendees without an active role by presenting a position paper are also welcome. Attendees have to register either for the IVA conference (with no extra costs for the workshop) or pay a fixed workshop fee that is announced later.

Dates

Time

July 2nd, 10am-3pm

Location

Room 304 at ISIR, Sorbonne Université, 4 Place Jussieu, 75012 Paris

Tentative Progam

10am -- Keynote by Prof. Arne Manzeschke (Ethics; Ev. Hochschule Nuernberg)
Title: What does it mean to interact with an Artificial Intelligence? Some ethical remarks on socio-technological arrangements
Abstract: Let's welcome a new agent in the arena of human interaction. Who or what – or would we need a new pronoun? – is this agent that we call Artificial Intelligence? It/she/he is increasingly pervading domains of our everyday life, while assisting, accompanying, and commenting on our digital expressions and our analogue communications. The lecture will elaborate on the ethical groundings of the interaction of a natural and a so called artificial intelligence. It will, furthermore, scrutinize normative questions arising from this socio-technological arrangement.

11am -- Presentation of position papers (appr. 7 minutes each) and corresponding discussions

Michiel de Jong, Jamy Li: “Eldertainment” or functional necessity?: Investigating how virtual agents influence the home lives of people with dementia using the Quality of Life (QOL-AD) scale
Jessica M. Szczuka: Hey A.I., Talk Dirty to Me... -- Theoretical Implications on Sexual Interactions with Interactive Assistants
Stefan Kopp, Hendrik Buschmeier, Nicole Krämer: Ethical evaluations in the design of virtual conversational assistants
Christian Geminn: Legal foundations and implications of intelligent user interfaces

11:30am -- Small group work on implications of interactive assistants on everyday life

1pm -- Plenary discussion with invited experts on future necessities and interdisciplinary research

Prof. Arne Manzeschke (Ethics; Ev. Hochschule Nuernberg)
Dr. Christian Geminn (Law; University of Kassell)
N.N. (Computer Science)
N.N. (Psychology)

Organizers

Nicole Krämer, University of Duisburg-Essen (nicole.kraemer@uni-due.de)

Stefan Kopp, Bielefeld University (skopp@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de)