ACM SIGAI Activity Report

AI MATTERS, VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3 SUMMER 2017

ACM SIGAI Activity Report Sven Koenig (elected; ACM SIGAI Chair) Sanmay Das (elected; ACM SIGAI Vice-Chair) Rosemary Paradis (elected; ACM SIGAI Secretary/Treasurer) Eric Eaton (appointed; ACM SIGAI Newsletter Editor-in-Chief) Yolanda Gil (appointed; ACM SIGAI Past Chair) Katherine Guo (appointed; ACM SIGAI Membership and Outreach Officer) Bojun Huang (appointed; ACM SIGAI Information Officer) Albert Jiang (appointed; ACM SIGAI Education Officer) Benjamin Kuipers (appointed; ACM SIGAI Ethics Officer) Nicholas Mattei (appointed; ACM SIGAI Ethics Officer) Amy McGovern (appointed; ACM SIGAI Newsletter Editor-in-Chief) Larry Medsker (appointed; ACM SIGAI Public Policy Officer) Todd Neller (appointed; ACM SIGAI Education Activities Officer) Plamen Petrov (appointed; ACM SIGAI Industry Liaison Officer) Michael Rovatsos (appointed; ACM SIGAI Conference Coordination Officer) David Stork (appointed; ACM SIGAI Award Officer) DOI: 10.1145/3137574.3137577

Abstract better. In order to do so, ACM SIGAI has created several new appointed officer positions, We are happy to present the annual activity namely an industry liaison officer, an award of- report of ACM SIGAI, covering the period from ficer and two ethics officers. July 2016 to June 2017. In the course of the last year, ACM SIGAI has been responsive to specific events and cir- The scope of ACM SIGAI consists of the cumstances as well as continued to support study of intelligence and its realization in and expand a range of regular activities. computer systems (see also its website at sigai.acm.org). This includes areas such as Responsive Initiatives in the Last Year

autonomous agents, cognitive modeling, ACM SIGAI actively supported the founding computer vision, constraint programming, hu- of a new ACM SIGAI chapter in China with man language technologies, intelligent user help from the membership and outreach offi- interfaces, knowledge discovery, knowledge cer. ACM SIGAI China held its first event, the representation and reasoning, machine learn- ACM SIGAI China Symposium on New Chal- ing, planning and search, problem solving and lenges and Opportunities in the Post-Turing AI robotics. Era, as part of the ACM China Turing 50th Cel- ebration Conference on May 12-14, 2017 in Members of ACM SIGAI come from academia, Shanghai. industry and government agencies worldwide. ACM SIGAI is proud of the fact that many AI ACM SIGAI held the ACM SIGAI Student Es- researchers in the past year received ACM say Contest on the Responsible Use of AI honors, including becoming ACM fellows as Technologies (run by one of the ethics of- well as receiving other awards. ficers), where students could win five cash ACM SIGAI is committed to increase its ac- prizes of US$500 or skype conversations with tivities in order to support its members even five very senior AI researchers from academia or industry if their essay provided good an- Copyright c 2017 by the author(s). swers to the following two questions:

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• What do you see as the 1-2 most pressing ethi- expression and communication for scientists. cal, social or regulatory issues with respect to AI All individuals are entitled to participate technologies? in any ACM activity.’ SIGAI is working on • What position or steps can governments, in- policies to support inclusive participation dustries or organizations (including ACM SIGAI) in our AI-related activities. We encourage take to address these issues or shape the dis- event organizers to share their efforts and cussions on them? experiences with us through our AI Matters newsletter at [email protected] The winning essays will be published in the and blog postings at sigai.acm.org/aimatters/blog/ ACM SIGAI newsletter. .” ACM SIGAI extended its coordination and col- ACM SIGAI also actively supported the Jour- laboration with a variety of groups, both inside nal of Human-Robot Interaction (JHRI) in its and outside of ACM: desire to become an ACM journal and be included in the ACM Digital Library. JHRI will be- • ACM SIGAI started to participate in the ACM come the ACM Transactions on Human-Robot US Public Policy Council (USACM). USACM ad- Interaction in January 2018. dresses US public policy issues related to computing and information technology and regularly educates and informs US Congress, the US Ad- Continuing Activities ministration and the US courts about significant developments in the computing field and how Organizing events: those developments affect public policy. The ACM SIGAI organized the annual ACM SIGAI public policy officer, for example, facilitated talks between the leaderships of USACM and the Career Network Conference (CNC), overseen American Association for the Advancement of by the vice chair. CNC showcases the work Science (AAAS) on areas of potential collabo- of early career researchers (including stu- ration. dents) to their potential mentors and employ- • ACM SIGAI started to participate in the IEEE ers. Each early career researcher is men- Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in AI tored by a senior AI researcher, with small and Autonomous Systems. The purpose of this group mentoring sessions as well as individ- initiative is to ensure that every technologist is ual advice. CNC 2016 was held at Northeast- educated, trained and empowered to prioritize ern University in Boston, Massachusetts, on ethical considerations in the design and devel- October 19-20, 2016 (and ACM SIGAI grate- opment of autonomous and intelligent systems. fully acknowledges the support and hospital- • ACM SIGAI also provided a response to the pub- ity of Northeastern University). 36 early ca- lic request for information from the US Office of reer researchers presented their work via talks Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) in 2016 and posters, and two panels (on Career Op- on Preparing for the Future of AI, thus support- tions and Getting Started, featuring senior AI ing the US government in making decisions con- researchers and practitioners from academia, cerning AI technologies and their applications. industry and the public sector) completed the program. In response to developments regarding international travel policies, ACM SIGAI released ACM SIGAI has an agreement with the As- the following public policy statement in 2017 sociation for the Advancement of AI (AAAI) via an effort of the public policy officer: to jointly organize the annual joint job fair at the AAAI conference, where attendees can “The ACM SIGAI executive committee find out about job and internship opportunities shares the view of its parent organization from representatives from industry, universi- that ’the open exchange of ideas and the ties and other organizations. This event was freedom of thought and expression are held at AAAI 2017 as planned. central to the aims and goals of ACM. ACM supports the statute of International Council for Science in that the free and responsible Supporting international conferences and practice of science is fundamental to scientific other events: advancement and human and environmental wellbeing. Such practice, in all its aspects, ACM SIGAI processed requests for co- requires freedom of movement, association, sponsored and in-cooperation status from 27

8 AI MATTERS, VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3 SUMMER 2017 conferences. The conference coordination of- • 16th International Conference on Autonomous ficer improved the support provided to confer- Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2017) ence organizers by contacting them person- • 16th International Conference on Artificial Intel- ally immediately after approval, inviting them ligence and Law (ICAIL 2017) to publicize their conference via the ACM • International Conference on Industrial, Engi- SIGAI newsletter and mailing lists, and follow- neering & Other Applications of Applied Intelli- ing up with a request for a conference report gent Systems (IEA/AIE 2017) after the conference, in order to publish it in • 14th International Conference on Informatics the ACM SIGAI newsletter and blog. in Control, Automation and Robotics (ICINCO ACM SIGAI has an agreement with AAAI to 2017) co-sponsor, jointly with AAAI, the annual joint • 11th ACM Conference on Recommender Sys- doctoral consortium at the AAAI conference. tems (RecSys 2017) The doctoral consortium provides an oppor- • International Conference on the Foundations of tunity for Ph.D. students to discuss their re- Digital Games (FDG 2017) search interests and career objectives with the • International Joint Conference on Rules and other participants and a group of established Reasoning (RuleML+RR 2017) AI researchers that act as their mentors. • 4th International Workshop on Sensor-based ACM SIGAI also co-sponsored the following Activity Recognition and Interaction (iWOAR conferences (future events are in italics): 2017) • Data Institute San Francisco Conference (DSCO • ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human- 2017) Robot Interaction (HRI 2017) • 9th International Joint Conference on Knowl- • 22nd International Conference on Intelligent edge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and User Interfaces (IUI 2017) Knowledge Management (IC3K 2017) • ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human- • 9th International Joint Conference on Computa- Robot Interaction (HRI 2018) tional Intelligence (IJCCI 2017) • ACM/IEEE International Conference on Auto- • 10th International Conference on Agents and Ar- mated Software Engineering (ASE 2017) tificial Intelligence (ICAART 2017) • ACM/IEEE International Conference on Auto- • 7th International Conference on Pattern Recog- mated Software Engineering (ASE 2018) nition Applications and Methods (ICPRAM 2018) • International Conference on Web Intelligence • 11th International Joint Conference on Biomed- (WI 2017) ical Engineering Systems and Technologies (BIOSTEC 2018) • International Conference on Web Intelligence (WI 2018) • 31st International Conference on Industrial, En- gineering & Other Applications of Applied Intelli- • 23rd International Conference on Intelligent gent Systems (IEA/AIE 2018) User Interfaces (IUI 2018) • 12th ACM Conference on Recommender Sys- • 24th International Conference on Intelligent tems (RecSys 2018) User Interfaces (IUI 2019) • 31th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST 2018) In addition, ACM SIGAI granted in- cooperation status to the following con- • 20th International Conference on Enterprise In- ferences: formation Systems (ICEIS 2018)

• Swarm/Human Blended Intelligence Workshop ACM SIGAI has an agreement with the Inter- (SHBI 2016) national Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (IFAAMAS) to spon- • 6th International Conference on Pattern Recog- sor the ACM SIGAI Autonomous Agents Re- nition Applications and Methods (ICPRAM 2017) search Award. The ACM SIGAI Autonomous • International Conference on Agents and Artiﬁ- Agents Research Award is an annual award cial Intelligence (ICAART 2017) for excellence in research in the area of au- • International Knowledge System Conference tonomous agents. The recipient is invited to (KMIKS 2017) give a talk at the International Conference on

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Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems • AI Interviews (with interesting people from (AAMAS). The 2017 ACM SIGAI Autonomous academia, industry and government), Agents Research Award was presented at AA- • AI Amusements (including AI humor, puzzles MAS 2017 to David Parkes from Harvard Uni- and games), versity for his work on a variety of topics in • AI Education (led by one of the education activi- multi-agent systems and economics. ties officers), • AI Policy Issues (led by the public policy officer), Increasing the visibility of AI research: • AI Buzzwords (which explains new AI concepts or terms), ACM SIGAI actively supports the Research Highlight Track of the Communications of the • AI Events (which includes conference an- ACM (CACM) by nominating publications of nouncements and reports), recent, significant and exciting AI research re- • AI Dissertation Abstracts and sults that are of general interest to the com- • News from AI Groups and Organizations. puter science research community to the Re- search Highlight Track. This way, ACM SIGAI To promote readership, the editors-in- helps to make important AI research results chief have moved to an open-access visible to many computer scientists. model (where AI Matters is openly avail- able on the ACM SIGAI website) and instituted a new AI Matters blog (at Supporting student members: sigai.acm.org/aimatters/blog/) to ACM SIGAI believes that funding students is a feature timely posts and promote discussion good way to ensure vitality in the AI commu- among community members. For example, nity and thus a good investment in the future. the public policy officer posts new informa- Consequently, it awarded a number of schol- tion every two weeks in the blog to survey arships to students to attend conferences co- and report on current AI policy issues and sponsored by it as well as the 50 Years of the raise awareness about the activities of other ACM Turing Award Celebration. The amounts organizations that share interests with ACM of the scholarships vary but are generally in SIGAI. Behind the scenes, the editors-in-chief the range of US$1,000 to US$10,000 per con- have also revamped the editorial process and ference, depending on the conference size. created tools to streamline the assembly of ACM SIGAI changed the period of time be- each issue. fore students who join ACM SIGAI can apply ACM SIGAI organized or co-organized ACM for financial benefits. There is now a 3-month webinars to inform ACM members about AI membership requirement before students can topics, such as the Town Hall on AI, Ma- apply for fellowships and travel support. chine Learning, and More in 2016 (run by the secretary/treasurer) and the Panel and Communicating with and supporting Town Hall on Big Thoughts and Big Ques- members: tions about Ethics in AI (run by one of the ethics officers). The webinars were ACM SIGAI publishes four issues of its streamed live but the videos are archived at newsletter AI Matters per year. AI Matters fea- learning.acm.org/webinar/. tures articles of general interest to the AI community, from research overview articles to dis- Additional ACM SIGAI membership benefits sertation abstracts. The editors-in-chief insti- include reduced registration fees at many of its tuted a number of reforms over the last year. co-sponsored and in-cooperation conferences For example, they started a number of recur- and access to the proceedings of many of ring columns in an effort to focus on the needs these conferences in the ACM Digital Library. and interests of individual populations of the membership and promote content creation for Planning for the Future each issue. These columns are led by individual column editors, who are responsible for ACM SIGAI is working on increasing the com- soliciting content or writing the column each munication with its current membership (for quarter. These columns have included example, via social media and membership

10 AI MATTERS, VOLUME 3, ISSUE 3 SUMMER 2017 surveys) and intensifying its activities that reach students (for example, via the student essay contest) and industry professionals (for example, via the webinars). Additional activities in this directions are currently being planned. ACM SIGAI also intends to continue expanding the number of co-sponsored and in-cooperation conferences and its efforts to influence public policy and further the discussion on the responsible use of AI technologies. Finally, it intends to reach out to more AI groups worldwide that could benefit from ACM support, such as providing financial support, making the proceedings widely accessible in the ACM Digital Library and providing speakers via the ACM Distinguished Speakers program.

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