Toward Social Mechanisms of Android Science

Workshop Details

25 July 2006 - 25 July 2006

Vancouver, Canada

http://www.androidscience.com

Call for Papers

Theme and goals

The embodiment of social and cognitive theories in interactive robots
sets a high bar for their evaluation. Theories that reify descriptions relying on a human interpreter for their grounding cannot be implemented in autonomous systems. The demands of coherently integrating responses cross-modally and coping with open, socially complex environments limit the applicability of theories that "grew up in the laboratory." Androids will be confronted with circumstances that exhibit complex closely-coordinated social dynamics, where stable patterns emerge at various spatial and temporal scales, and expectations depend in part on a histories of interaction that are unique to individual relationships.

We define an android to be an artificial system that has humanlike behavior and appearance and is capable of sustaining natural relationships with people. Although people may know that an android is not human, they would treat it as if it were, owing to the largely subconscious responses it would elicit. To pass the Total Turing Test, an android would need have the inclination toward "mind reading" that is characteristic of people. The development of androids is beyond the scope of mere engineering because, to make the android humanlike, we must investigate human activity, and to
evaluate theories of human activity accurately, we need to implement them in an android. Thus, we need an android science.

The aim of this workshop is to begin to lay a foundation for research in android science, a new field that integrates the synthetic approach from robotics with the empirical methodologies of the social sciences. Participants, coming from engineering and the social, cognitive, and biological sciences seek fundamental principles underlying cognition and communication between individuals. Cognition is not viewed as solely a property of brains, to be understood at a micro-structural level, nor as socially-definable and separable from biomechanical or sensorimotor constraints. By highlighting agent- world relations, androids have the potential for helping researchers to bridge the gap between cognitive neuroscience and the behavioral sciences, leading to a new way of understanding human beings. Thus, we hope to find principles that will apply equally well to androids and Homo sapiens.

Topics of interest

- The role of affect and motivation in social development or communication
- Empathic relationships among people and/or robots
- Inter-species co-evolution, cooperation, and empathy
- Processes of socialization and enculturation
- Extended relationship
- Social learning and adaptation, especially from people
- The evolution, development, and nature of agency, intentionality, or social intelligence
- Software architectures for embodied social interaction
- The grounding, emergence, or acquisition of communicative signs or symbols
- Mimesis and its role in communication and development
- The development or implementation of hierarchies of meaning
- Models of personal, interindividual, group, or cultural norms
- Cross-modal synchronization or stabilized plasticity in speech and/or gesture
- Learning with and from machines
- Androids working alongside people as peers
- Applications in human environments
- Ethical issues concerning androids
- Perception of naturalness, attractiveness, or charisma
- The relationship between appearance and perceived behavior
- Android personalities
- Emotional intelligence
- The Total Turing Test

Target participants

Robotics engineers and computer scientists with an interest in artificial intelligence, machine learning, pattern recognition, and control, especially those whose target platform includes humanoid robots; psychologists and sociologists who are concerned with real-time embodied communication or social development; cognitive scientists who are concerned with the relationship between brain processes and social dynamics; social and comparative biologists; and philosophers.

The workshop is of interest to the target participants because androids will provide a critical test bed for social and cognitive theories in the future, and research in this domain depends on interdisciplinary collaboration between engineers and natural and social scientists.

Submissions

Submissions must be made by email to as2006@androidscience.com. They should conform to the APA Style Manual and be in Adobe PDF with all fonts embedded and without encryption.

A correctly formatted PDF file has been uploaded to our website for reference. A LaTeX template and style file (preferred) and a Microsoft Word template are also available. The preferred length for papers is between 4 and 12 pages inclusive.

Set the paper size to letter (8.5x11 inches), and avoid modifying the margins or using headers, footers, or page numbers. The file name should obey the following convention: authorname_submissiondate.pdf (e.g., jones_3_17.pdf).

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Toward Social Mechanisms of Android Science

Theme and goals

Topics of interest

Target participants

Submissions