Call for Papers

Special Session on the Ethical, Legal and Social Implications of Computational Intelligence
Proposal

Organisers:
• Prof. Keeley Crockett, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. Email: K.Crockettt@mmu.ac.uk
• Prof. Matthew Garratt, University of New South Wales Canberra, Australia. Email: m.garratt@adfa.edu.au
• Prof Robert Reynolds, Wayne State University, USA. Email: robert.reynolds@wayne.edu

Aim and Scope
This special session focuses on novel technical contributions to the field of Artificial Intelligence Ethics (including fairness, explainability, risk, accountability and responsibility). We will also consider novel research in the field of data-driven guidelines and recommendations on responsible AI policies, standards, and methodologies; social science studies and recommendations related to the impact of AI on society, as well as surveys of the state-of-the-art in the space of AI ethics.
The aim of the proposed special session is to discuss the ethical and moral principles that govern the behaviour of AI/CI technology, as well as the operator, user and other stakeholders who are impacted by decisions informed by such technologies. These principles should cover the following: balancing the ecological footprint of technologies against the economic benefits; managing the impact of automation on the workforce; ensuring privacy is not adversely affected; and dealing with the legal implications of embodying AI/CI technologies in autonomous systems. As the largest technical event in the field of CI, WCCI 2024 provides an ideal forum for discussion of these issues.

Research Topics - Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
• AI/CI on data privacy
• Safety of AI/CI systems embedded in autonomous and automated systems
• Human-machine Trust in AI/CI Systems
• Specific applications of AI/CI and the potential ethical/social benefits
• Legal implications of AI/CI (e.g., legal liabilities when things go wrong; how do you certify systems that can ‘learn’ from their environment etc)
• Citizen perceptions of AI and its impact
• Empirical research into the ethical impacts of AI/CI systems, including but not limited to impacts of AI/CI on human workforce and distribution of wealth, data privacy, business, economics or manufacturing and politics, human cognition and social relatedness, and security
• Applications of AI and the potential ethical/social benefits and risks
• Technical research into the representation, acquisition, and use of ethical knowledge by AI/CI systems.
• Technical research and human-centred solutions for AI/CI, such as bias, fairness, explainability, accountability, responsibility, risk
• Data-driven guidelines and recommendations, standard developments.

Novel Interdisciplinary research and industry submissions are welcome.

Important Deadlines

• Paper submission: 29th January 2024

• Notification of acceptance: 15th March 2024

• Final paper submission: 1st May 2024

Paper Submission

Paper submission is through the conference website: Submission | IEEE WCCI 2024

Please read the author instructions carefully before submitting your paper.

Please ensure that you submit to the special session: Ethical, Legal and Social Implications of Computational Intelligence.

This special session is supported by the IEEE Technical Committee on Ethical, Legal, Social, Environmental and Human Dimensions of AI/CI (SHIELD).

ORGANIZER BIOGRAPHIES:

Prof Keeley Crockett, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

Keeley Crockett SMIEEE SFHEA is a Professor in Computational Intelligence at Manchester Metropolitan University and Chair of the IEEE Technical Committee SHIELD (Ethical, Legal, Social, Environmental and Human Dimensions of AI/CI). She has over 27 years’ experience of research and development in Ethical and responsible AI (for both SME’s and an advocate for citizen voice), computational intelligence algorithms and applications, including adaptive psychological profiling, fuzzy systems, semantic similarity, and dialogue systems. Keeley has led work on Place based practical Artificial Intelligence, facilitating a parliamentary inquiry with Policy Connect and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Data Analytics (APGDA), leading to the inquiry report “Our Place Our Data: Involving Local People in Data and AI-Based Recovery”. She obtained STRENGTH IN PLACES POLICY funded engagement work with Greater Manchester businesses on “SME Readiness for Adoption of Ethical Approaches to AI Development and Deployment” and has contributed to the recent APGDA: AI and Ethics Report. She is currently the Principal Investigator (PI) on the EPSRC “PEAs in Pods: Co-production of community based public engagement for data and AI research.” Grant, Co-I on The Alan Turing Institute “People-powered AI: responsible research and innovation through community ideation and involvement”, PI on an Innovate UK Knowledge Transfers Partnership with My First Five Years and CI on Innovate UK Knowledge Transfers Partnership with COUCH. She is co-academic lead of the GM AI Foundry and is Co-Lead for AI/Cybersecurity on the new Centre for Digital Innovation (CDI). She is a member of IEEE Computational intelligence Society ADCOM (2023-25), Chair of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Diversity and Inclusion subcommittee, Co-Chair of the IEEE Women in Engineering Educational Outreach, and a U.K. STEM Ambassador. She has 28 PhD completions and will be technical Co-Chair at IEEE FUZZ 2024 (IEEE WCCI 2024) Japan.

Email K.Crockett@mmu.ac.uk

Prof Matt Garratt (Corresponding) University of New South Wales Canberra, Australia

Matthew Garratt received a BE degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Sydney University, Australia, a graduate diploma in applied computer science from Central Queensland University and a PhD in the field of biologically inspired robotics from the Australian National University in 2008. He is currently a full Professor with the School of Engineering and Technology (SET) at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and Deputy Director of the UNSW.ai institute for Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Data Science. His research interests include machine vision, intelligent control and learning from scratch for autonomous systems with particular emphasis on biologically inspired and Computational Intelligence approaches. He is a member of the IEEE CIS and robotics and automation society and also senior member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and member of the American Helicopter Society.

Email m.garratt@adfa.edu.au

Prof Robert Reynolds, Wayne State University, USA

Dr. Robert G. Reynolds received his Ph.D. in Computer Science, specializing in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is currently a Professor of Computer Science and director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Wayne State University. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE. At the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, Professor Reynolds is a Visiting Research Scientist with the Museum of Anthropology, and a member of the Complex Systems Group. His interests are in the development of computational models of cultural evolution for use in the simulation of complex organizations, computer gaming, and virtual world applications.
Dr. Reynolds produced a framework called Cultural Algorithms, to express and computationally test various theories of social evolution using multi-agent simulation models. He has authored or co-authored seven books in the area. His most recent books are “Cultural Algorithms: Tools for the Engineering of Social Intelligence into Complex Cultural Systems, 2020, Wiley-IEEE Press”, and “Culture on the Edge of Chaos” published by Springer-Verlag in 2018. In additional he has written over 250 papers. Currently, Dr. Reynolds along with his students, are developing a toolkit for testing Cultural Algorithms in dynamic environments; the Cultural Algorithm Toolkit (CAT). His research group has produced award winning game controller software for several international competitions using the Cultural Algorithms toolkit. In 2017, a software system based upon Cultural Algorithms came in second in the IEEE Single Real Valued Function Optimization competition held in conjunction with the IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation.
Dr. Reynolds has applied Cultural Algorithms to problems in social evolution including the evolution of agriculture; the origins of the state in Ancient Mexico; the discovery of ancient hunting sites underneath Lake Huron; the emergence of prehistoric urban centers in Mexico; the origins of language and culture in Peru; and the disappearance of the Ancient Anazazi in Southwestern Colorado. He has co-authored three books in this area that include the following; Flocks of the Wamani (1989, Academic Press), with Joyce Marcus and Kent V. Flannery; The Acquisition of Software Engineering Knowledge (2003, Academic Press), with George Cowan; and Excavations at San Jose Mogote 1: The Household Archaeology with Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus (2005, Museum of Anthropology-University of Michigan Press).

Email: reynolds@cs.wayne.edu