The discipline of Artificial Intelligence (AI) was born in the summer of 1956 at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Half of a century has passed, and AI has come a long way since its inception. It has turned into an important field, whose influence on our daily lives can hardly be overestimated. Many specialized AI systems exist that are at work in our cars, in our laptop computers, and in our personal and commercial technologies. There is no doubt that the impact of AI on our lives in the future will become even more general and ubiquitous.

Objective I: Celebrating AI

The first (and most obvious) objective of the workshop is thus to celebrate the 50th anniversary of AI as a discipline. Despite its advances in the last 50 years, it is clear that the original goals set by the first generation of AI visionaries have not been reached. Not only is natural intelligence far from being understood and artificial forms of intelligence still so much more primitive than natural ones, but seemingly simple tasks like object manipulation and recognition - which a 3-year-old can do - have not yet been realized artificially. A look at the current landscape of research reveals how little we know about how biological brains achieve their remarkable functionalities, how these functionalities develop in the child, or how they have arisen in the course of evolution. Also, we do not understand the cultural and social processes that have helped to shape human intelligence. Because basic theories of natural intelligence are lacking and – despite impressive advances – the required technologies for building sophisticated artificial systems are still not available, the capabilities of current robots fall far short of the intelligence of even very simple animals. What has been missed is – we believe – how important embodiment and the interaction with the world are as the basis for thinking. Quite recently it has become evident that many fields (linguistics, cognitive sciences, neuroscience, morphogenesis, artificial intelligence, robotics, and material sciences) are highly relevant in order to advance the state of the art. It is our conviction that breakthroughs can only be achieved by a strong cross-fertilization between these fields.

Objective II: Coming Together

The second main objective of the workshop is therefore to bring together people with a variety of different backgrounds. In particular we are aiming at attracting young and talented researchers and business persons to generate additional momentum in this exciting field.

Objective III: Broadening Views of Intelligence

The third important objective will be to do away with the computational metaphor that has been haunting AI for 50 years: the brain is not a computer! A merely computational approach to understanding natural intelligence and realizing artificial forms of it (which was proposed in 1956) has been shown to be inadequate. It is time to move beyond computation. Recently, artificial intelligence researchers have become aware of the fact that uncovering the mechanisms underlying the dynamics of the mutual and reciprocal interaction of body, brain, and environment is of crucial importance. We believe that it is important to reassess the field based on this recent paradigm change.

Workshop Outcome: Broadening the Scope of AI

We expect that the outcome of the workshop will go well beyond the scientific discipline. It is very unfortunate that most researchers in AI today are still working within the boundaries of the field defined 50 years ago. There is no doubt, however, that the concepts and fascination developed in AI have to eventually spread out into society at large, including business, public institutions, art, and the media. This is the reason why we will also encourage the attendance of researchers as well as people from those areas who have provided valuable input to the development of the field. We are convinced that the outcome will not only help us sketch out the integrated future directions of AI research, but also understand how deep the paradigm change goes. These perspectives will lead to a publication emerging from the workshop (proceedings, book, or handbook), which in our view will significantly advance the field.

A New Kind of Workshop for a New AI

In summary, multiple reasons exist that set this workshop apart from other workshops on AI: (a) the clear focus on the scientific investigation of the mechanisms underlying intelligent behavior; (b) the reassessment of AI based on recent evidence that suggests doing away with the computational analogy as a conceptual guide; (c) a clear emphasis on the importance of AI not only for the AI and the scientific community, but also for society at large; and (d) the potential transfer of knowledge, interests, and important outstanding open issues to the business world and to the general society in the rapidly changing world of the 21st century.


KEYNOTE SPEAKERS / PANELISTS

Andy Adamatzky

Prof., University of the West of England
Panel: Modern AI: beyond 'cognition as computation'?

Minoru Asada

Prof., Osaka University
Topic: Synergistic intelligence

Rodney Brooks

Director, MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab // Panasonic Prof. of Robotics // CTO, iRobot Corporation
Title: "AI: Where from and where to?"

Raja Chatila

Director, Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Group of LAAS-CNRS
Title: "Cogniron"

Dave Cliff

Prof., University of Southampton
Topic: AI, IT, and complexity

Michael Dickinson

Zarem Prof. of Bioengineering and Prof. of Biology, California Institute of Technology
Title: "How flies fly"

Rudiger Dillmann

Prof., University of Karlsruhe
Panel: Funding AI research - large international projects? Alternatives?

Rodney Douglas

Director of the Institute, and Prof. of Neuroinformatics, ETH Zurich // Visiting Prof., Computation and Neural Systems, California Institute of Technology
Topic: Neuroinformatics

Peter Fromherz

Director, Department of Membrane and Neurophysics, Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry
Topic: Neuro-electronic interfacing

Luca Gambardella

Director, Istituto Dalle Molle di Studi sull'Intelligenza Artificiale
Panel: Advertizing AI to the public and to companies - strategies and methods

Koh Hosoda and Akio Ishiguro

Prof., Osaka University
Prof., Nagoya University
Title: Mobiligence

Edgar Koerner

President, Honda Research Institute Europe
Panel: Advertizing AI to the public and to companies - strategies and methods

Yasuo Kuniyoshi

Prof., University of Tokyo
Title: [TBA]

Hod Lipson

Prof., Cornell University
Title: "Evolutionary robotics and evolutionary design"

Colette Maloney

Dr., Head of Unit E5: Cognition - European Commission
Panel: Funding AI research - large international projects? Alternatives?

Nils Nilsson

Kumagai Prof. of Engineering, Emeritus, Stanford University
Title: "Routes to the AI Summit"

Steve Potter

Prof., Georgia Inst. of Technology
Panel: The new landscape of artificial intelligence - the impact of other research areas

Giulio Sandini , David Vernon and Giorgio Metta

Prof., University of Genova
Prof., University of Genova
Prof., University of Genova
Title: "RobotCub - Sharing a body for the advancement of AI"

Andrew Schwartz

Prof., University of Pittsburgh
Topic: Neural prosthetics

Metin Sitti

Prof., Carnegie Mellon University
Title: "Micro/nanorobotics and AI"

Luc Steels

Director, Sony Computer Science Laboratory Paris // Prof., Free University of Brussel
Topic: Emergence and communication

Sebastian Thrun

Director, Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab
Title: "The Future of Driving"

Adrianne Wortzel

Prof. of Communication Arts, New York City College of Technology // Adjunct Prof. of Mechanical Engineering, Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art
Title: "Archipelago.ch: The Dynamic Diorama"

SUBMISSION

We solicit submissions of 1- to 2-page long abstracts. Authors of accepted abstracts will be invited to present a poster; selected authors will be invited to give oral presentations. All accepted abstracts will be compiled in a handbook to be distributed at the workshop. A word-template for the long abstract can be downloaded here. Abstracts should be sent to jb382 AT cornell DOT edu.

To encourage everyone to contribute something to the shared vision of AI and to stimulate discussion, we ask for all attendees to submit an abstract, be it technical, a position paper, historical commentary, visions of the future, or comment on social impact.


TOPIC AREAS

Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Life
Brain-Machine Interfaces
Cognitive Science
Computer Science
Developmental Science
Dynamical Systems
Emotions
Human-Robot Interaction
Language
Life Sciences
Material Science
Nanotechnology
Network Technology
Neuroscience
Robotics