We will post updates about the special issue and the possibility of a follow-up workshop in Japan as they become available.

Tom (and Matthew and Xabier)

Please have a look at the content of the various contributions and prepare some interesting questions for their discussion at the workshop.

We are happy to announce that the WAAT workshop program has now been finalized. Please check the schedule in order to verify that your details are correct and to see when you will be presenting. Also, please check the ECAL 2011 website for information about where to find the Salon de l’Argentine at the conference venue.

Here is some additional information about the workshop (please pass this along to your colleagues):

- We are still in the process of compiling the workshop abstracts into a small booklet (should be available soon)
- Apparently, free wireless internet will be available in the room, but no computers.
- Please bring your own laptop for your presentation.
- Many of you have asked about possible reductions in registration fee and/or accommodation prices. Unfortunately, we have no control over these matters and even as workshop organizers we are subject to the same constraints.
- At least the registration fee will cover the following food and drinks (I’m copying this from the organizers e-mail):

“4.a BREAKFAST: Every morning from 8am to 9am, a breakfast buffet will be served (coffee, tea, hot chocolate, fresh juice, mineral water, croissants and other pastries). On Monday August 8, it will be located in the lobby of the mezzanine level, then starting on Tuesday 9, it will be moved inside the Adenauer Halls.

4.b COFFEE BREAKS: Several other coffee breaks (in the mid-morning, mid-afternoon and, some days, late afternoon) will be served at the same location as the breakfast buffet. Please check the times on the program here: http://ecal11.org/program

4.c LUNCH BREAKS will consist of a “lunch box” package, composed of (a) a sandwich or a salad, (b) a dessert and (c) a drink. You will have several choices every day, varying from day to day (typical sandwiches: ham, egg, tuna, chicken, cheese / salads: salmon, noodle, mixed veggie / desserts: apple pie, chocolate tart, yogurt, fruit salad). All lunch breaks are scheduled from 12:10pm to 1:40pm, except the first day Monday 8, from 1pm to 2:30pm.”

So we hope to see you bright and early for a WAAT breakfast next Monday morning!

All the best,
Tom (and Matthew and Xabier)

In order to accommodate a diverse set of speakers we decided to have two kinds of presentations: normal and short talks. Normal talks are scheduled for 45 minutes (30mins talk with 15mins discussion), while short talks are scheduled for 30 minutes (20mins talk with 10mins discussion).

We are now in the process of finalizing the workshop schedule and workshop program. These will be made available on this website as soon as possible.

We will announce the decisions as soon as possible…

The new deadline for submission is: May 16!

Authors of the best selected abstracts will be invited to present full-length papers at a follow-up workshop, and these papers will be published in the journal.

CFP for Workshop on Artificial Autonomy: 20 years of practice of autonomous systems

- WAAT: Official Workshop for ECAL2011 -
http://autonomyworkshop.wordpress.com/
8th August 2011, Paris, France
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 2nd May 2011

SHORT INTRODUCTION

This year’s European Conference on Artificial Life (ECAL) in Paris celebrates the 20th anniversary of the first ECAL and is dedicated to Francisco Varela’s work on biological autonomy. We are taking advantage of this opportunity to set up an ECAL satellite event, a Workshop on Artificial Autonomy (WAAT) to highlight the state of the art in the practice of autonomous systems.

IMPORTANT DATES

May 2 (Monday): Submission of abstracts deadline
June 15 (Wednesday): Announcement of editors decision
August 8 (Monday): Workshop starts

SUBMISSIONS

We invite submissions of extended abstracts that address a number of outstanding issues related to natural and artificial autonomy. The length of the extended abstract should be between 1000 and 1500 words, preceeded by a short summary of 150 words. A selection of the presentations at the workshop will be invited to a follow-up meeting in Japan and submission for a special issue of the Artificial Life journal.

WORKSHOP THEMES

The themes of the workshop can be grouped into broadly overlapping categories: theory, history, modelling, measurement and implementation of autonomous systems. A goal of the workshop is to address these issues with empirical and computational modelling approaches wherever possible. In this vein, integrative models are particularly encouraged. Possible themes include but are not limited to the following topics:

a) To asses the progress made after 20 years of modelling, measuring, conceptualizing and synthesizing autonomous systems
b) To further clarify conceptually and pragmatically the notion of autonomy (and related concepts such as autopoiesis, closure to efficient causation, enaction, emergence, agency, etc.).
c) To review and advance current methods of formalizing and measuring autonomy (e.g. with information theory, category theory, dynamical systems theory, etc.)
d) To evaluate the current state of the art on the modelling of specific types of autonomy: protocellular or autopoietic autonomy, cognitive or behavioural autonomy, multicellular autonomy, social autonomy, etc.
e) To address the issue of modeling different levels of autonomy (metabolic, behavioural, social) and their relationship (inclusive, mutually-dependent, hierarchical, etc.)

More specific topics/questions for submission are:

- What are the necessary requirements for a genuine autonomous (open-ended) behaviour (e.g. autonomy, DNA, nervous system, sociality, culture, etc.)? And how can these requirements best be studied in artificial systems?
- What are the required steps that lead from self-motion to autonomous agency?
- What are the consequences of the shift from autonomous systems to artificial agency in terms of engineering, cognitive science, sociallity and ethics?
- How does the modeling and theory/ies of autonomous systems relate to current trends in systems neuroscience?
- How are cognitive autonomy and biological autonomy (self-construction / autopoiesis) related? Can cognitive autonomy exist in non-autopoietic systems?
- How close are current advances on artificial protocells to address genuine autonomy? What else is required?
- Demonstrations of how advances in autonomy-theory can contribute to other fields such as cancer research, psychiatry, evolutionary theory, origins of life research, robotics, ecology, artificial intelligence, artificial life, etc.
- Models of autonomy: Show an autonomous behaviour, agent, or system in a model and provide a conceptual defense for why it should be considered autonomous.
- Aspects of autonomy: Model features that seem fundamental to autonomy, such as e.g., operational closure, granger-autonomy, enaction, precariousness, viability boundaries, etc.
- Demonstrate (e.g. in a model) concepts that can be transferred from the study of biological autonomy to the study of cognitive autonomy (or vice versa).

SPECIAL CHALLENGE: How to model mind in life and life in mind? Much progress has been made in two directions, biological autonomy (protocell research) and behavioural autonomy (cognitive/adaptive robotics), but integrating the progress made in these two areas remains an open challenge. How can we model an integrated autonomous system capable of displaying both self-production and flexible, self-regulating behaviour?

SUBMISSION PROCEDURE

The lenght of the extended abstract should be between 1000 and 1500 words, preceeded by a short summary of 150 words. Submission is required in two copies (a normal version and a blind version) in PDF format. The normal version should include Author names and affiliations + contact email of author for correspondence. The blind version should have no author names, nor self-references or other means of identification of the authors. Please send the 2 copies to t.froese@gmail.com in PDF format by May 2 at the latest with the file names:
* Nomal copy: FIRST_AUTHOR_NAME_full.pdf (e.g.: Varela_normal.pdf)
* Blind copy: FIRST_AUTHOR_NAME_blind.pdf (e.g.: Varela_blindl.pdf)

All submissions will be peer-reviewed by members of the scientific committee. Authors of accepted abstracts will be invited to present their work as a short (20min) talk. The workshop will conclude with a general discussion about the various topics that have been presented.

PUBLICATION AND FOLLOW UP

Selected presentations will be invited to write full-length papers for a follow-up workshop to be held in Tokyo (Japan) before the end of 2011. The proceedings of this follow-up workshop will be published in a special issue of the journal Artificial Life.

WEBSITE

For up-to-date information, please check the WAAT workshop website regularly: http://autonomyworkshop.wordpress.com/

IMPORTANT DATES

April 6 (Wednesday): Official ECAL deadline
May 2 (Monday): Submission of abstracts deadline
June 15 (Wednesday): Announcement of editors decision
July 1 (Friday): Revised abstracts due; announcement of workshop program
August 8 (Monday): Day of the workshop

MAIN ORGANIZERS

+ Tom Froese, University of Tokyo, Japan
+ Matthew Egbert, University of Sussex, UK
+ Xabier Barandiaran, CREA, France

Please e-mail t.froese@gmail.com for any queries.

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE

+ Alvaro Moreno, Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science, University of the Basque Country, Spain
+ Anthony Chemero, Department of Psychology, Franklin and Marshall College, USA
+ Arantza Etxeberria, Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science, University of the Basque Country, Spain
+ Barry McMullin, The Rince Institute, Dublin City University, Ireland
+ Chrisantha Fernando, MRC National Institute for Medical Research, London, UK
+ Cliff Hooker, University of Newcastle, Australia.
+ Eduardo Izquierdo, Cognitive Science Program, Indiana University, USA
+ Ezequiel A. Di Paolo, Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science, University of the Basque Country, Spain
+ Fabio Mavelli, Faculty of Biotechnological Science, University of Bari, Italy
+ Hiro Iizuka, Human Information Engineering Lab, Osaka University, Japan
+ Inman Harvey, Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics, University of Sussex, UK
+ John Protevi, Department of French Studies, Louisiana State University, USA
+ John Stewart, Département Technologie et Sciences de l’Homme, Université de technologie de Compiègne, France
+ Jon Umerez, Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science, University of the Basque Country, Spain
+ Jun Tani, Laboratory for Behavior and Dynamic Cognition, RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Japan
+ Keisuke Suzuki, Laboratory for Adaptive Intelligence, RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Japan
+ Kepa Ruiz-Mirazo, Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science, University of the Basque Country, Spain
+ Laura Nuño de la Rosa, Institut de’Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques (IHPST), France & Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain
+ Marieke Rohde, Multisensory Perception and Action Group, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Germany
+ Mark Bickhard, Lehigh University, USA.
+ Matteo Mossio, Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science, University of the Basque Country, Spain
+ Mike Wheeler, Department of Philosophy, University of Stirling, UK
+ Nathaniel Virgo, Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics, University of Sussex, UK
+ Paul Bourgine, CREA (Polytechnique/CNRS), Paris, France.
+ Paul Williams, Cognitive Science Program, Indiana University, USA
+ Randall Beer, Center for the Integrative Study of Animal Behavior, Cognitive Science Research Program, Indiana University, USA
+ Steen Rasmussen, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Santa Fe Institute, USA
+ Steve Torrance, Centre for Research in Cognitive Science (COGS), University of Sussex, UK
+ Takashi Ikegami, Ikegami Laboratory, Department of General Systems Studies, University of Tokyo, Japan
+ Tom Ziemke, Cognition & Interaction Lab, University of Skövde, Sweden
+ Wayne Christensen, Konrad Lorenz Institute, Austria

We are now in the process of assembling the scientific committee for the workshop. A call for papers will be sent out soon.