Panels

 

Digital Humanism – our relationship to technology

26.07. 11:15 – 12:30, Strauss 2-3

Digital Humanism is an interdisciplinary approach, integrating humanities, social, and technical sciences, that aims to describe, to analyze and, above all, to influence the complex interplay between IT and humanity – for a society that respects human rights. So it’s not just about AI and its social implications, but has a much broader view on our relationship to technology, e.g., monopolies in the Web, national sovereignty, privacy, or work in a new world. This breadth – in terms of problem areas, audiences, and disciplines involved – also presents a significant challenge. In the discussion, after introducing the concept (see Vienna Manifesto on Digital Humanism) and discussing its various dimensions, we will discuss these specific challenges.
 
Moderator: Hannes Werthner, TU Wien (Austria)
 
Panelists:
  • Virginia Dignum, Umea University (Sweden)
  • Gerti Kappel, TU Wien (Austria), dean of the faculty of Informatics, background in formal SE
  • Peter Knees. TU Wien (Austria) and expert in recommender systems and music retrieval
  • Sabine Köszegi. TU Wien (Austria), Member of the EU high level group on AI
  • Carles Sierra, AI Research Institute (Spain) and President EurAI
  • Toby Walsh, School of CSE, UNSW Sidney (Australia) and CSIRO Data 61

AI made in Europe – What is it? Is it important?

27.07. 11:15 – 12:30, Strauss 2-3

Over the past number of years the European Commission and the EU Member States have promoted the concept of a “European approach to AI”. This vision is focused on human-centric and trustworthy AI technology, sometimes described as building an ecosystem of trust for AI. Complementary to this is the objective of ensuring that Europe is a leader in research, development, innovation, and deployment of AI. This is sometimes described as building as “ecosystem of excellence for AI”. In this panel we will explore the major themes of the European approach for AI. We will explore what differentiates AI “made in” and “made for” Europe, and whether this is a vision that will place Europe in a position of technological leadership in the world, and what needs to be done to get AI from the minds of brilliant scientists and into products and services that have the potential for massive positive impact on the world.
 
Chair: Barry O’Sullivan, University College Cork (Ireland)
 
Panelists:
  • Holger Hoos, RWTH Aachen University (Germany)
  • Michela Milano, University of Bologna (Italy)
  • Francesca Rossi, IBM Research (USA)
  • Michael Wooldridge, University of Oxford (UK)

Panel: Trustworthy AI for Good: Challenges, Lessons Learnt, and Synergies

27.07. 15:30 – 16:30, Strauss 2-3

AI for Good aims to apply AI technologies to social good problems, such as those related to the UN SDGs. Trustworthy AI is about developing and using AI to ensure properties, such as fairness, transparency, explainability, and robustness. The ideal scenario is to employ trustworthy AI approaches to AI solutions to social good problems. With this vision in mind, this panel wants to explore the challenges and lessons learnt in both fields. It also aims to discuss the possible synergies between the concrete initiatives and socio-technical approaches identified and adopted to build trust in AI or to use it for social good purposes.
In this discussion, we plan to address issues of multidisciplinarity, scaling and sustainability of the business model, collaborative platforms, multi-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder research and development environments, education, and culture change.

Moderator: Francesca Rossi, University of Padua (Italy)

Panelists:

  • Virginia Dignum: Umea University (Sweden)
  • Carles Sierra, AI Research Institute (Spain) and President EurAI
  • Milind Tambe, Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science and Director CRCS Center for Research on Computation and Society, Harvard School of Engineering (USA)

Highly refereed AI conferences

28.07. 11:15 – 12:30, Strauss 2-3

Due to a rapidly increasing number of submissions, running the paper selection process at large AI conferences has become more and more challenging, and the results may not be fully satisfactory to multiple parties. This panel is devoted to discussing issues around this: how to cope with thousands of submissions, and how to warrant quality of reviews? How does this increase in numbers affect the relative role of conferences and journals, especially in connection with funding and academic promotion? Are recent methods of desk-rejecting papers a good solution? Are journal first publication models a good alternative method?

Moderator: Carles Sierra: AI Research Institute (Spain) and President EurAI
 
Panelists:
  • Luc De Raedt: KU Leuven (Belgium) and Örebro University (Sweden)
  • Maria Gini: College of Science & Engineering Distinguished Professor, University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering (USA)
  • Peter Stone: University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas, Austin (USA) and Executive Director of Sony AI America
  • Christian Bessiere: Researcher at the University of Montpellier, LIRMM (France)