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Spring News from the Association for the Advancement of Artiﬁcial Intelligence

AAAI Adopts organizations and entities that attend Kiri Wagstaff (Jet Propulsion Laborato- ry, USA) Code of Ethics and AAAI conferences and events are subject to the standards of conduct set This honor was announced at the Professional Conduct and forth in this document. AAAI expects recent AAAI-19 Conference in Honolu- Code of Conduct for all community members to formally lu, Hawaii, USA. Senior Member status endorse this code of conduct, and to is designed to recognize AAAI members

Conferences and Events actively prevent and discourage any who have achieved significant accom- The AAAI Executive Council unani- undesired behaviors. plishments within the field of artificial mously adopted two new important Both codes are available on the AAAI intelligence. To be eligible for nomina- documents at its recent meeting in website via the About Us link. The tion for Senior Member, candidates Honolulu, Hawaii. The AAAI Code of Code of Conduct for Conferences and must be consecutive members of AAAI Ethics and Professional Conduct is Events will also be linked directly from for at least five years and have been designed to inspire and guide the ethi- all AAAI conference and meeting web- active in the professional arena for at cal conduct of all AI professionals, sites. Please address all inquiries to least ten years. including current and aspiring practi- [email protected]. tioners, instructors, students, influ- Congratulations encers, and anyone who uses AI tech- AAAI Announces nology in an impactful way, and is to the 2019 AAAI New Senior Members! particularly intended to act as a stan- Award Winners! dard of ethical and professional con- AAAI congratulates the following indi- duct for all AAAI members. Additional- viduals on their election to AAAI Sen- Yolanda Gil, AAAI President, Rao ly, the Code serves as a basis for ior Member status: Kambhampati, AAAI Past President and Awards Committee Chair, and Bart remediation when violations occur. Bo An (Nanyang Technological Uni- The Code includes principles formulat- versity, Singapore) Selman, AAAI President-Elect, presented as statements of responsibility, ed the AAAI Awards in January at based on the understanding that the Roman Barták (Charles University, AAAI-19 in Honolulu. Czechia) public good is always the primary consideration. Each principle is supple- Yiling Chen (Harvard University, USA) 2019 Feigenbaum Prize mented by guidelines, which provide AAAI established the Feigenbaum Prize Cristina Conati (University of British to recognize and encourage outstand- explanations to assist AI professionals Columbia, Canada) in understanding and applying the ing artificial intelligence research principle. This code is adapted from Minh Do (NASA Ames Research Center, advances that are made by using exper- the Association for Computing Ma - USA) imental methods of computer science. chinery (ACM) Code of Ethics and Pro- Eric Eaton (University of Pennsylvania, AAAI is pleased to announce that fessional Conduct and expresses the USA) the 2019 recipiemt of the prize is Stu- conscience of the AI profession. art Russell, University of California, Vincent Ng (The University of Texas at The Code of Conduct for Confer- Dallas, USA) Berkeley. He is being honored for his ences and Events sets forth expecta- high-impact contributions to the field tions for behavior at all AAAI events Marco Valtorta (University of South of artificial intelligence through inno- and provides a mechanism for atten- Carolina, USA) vation and achievement in probabilis- dees to report any behavior that falls Yevgeniy Vorobeychik (Washington Uni- tic knowledge representation, reason- outside these expectations. All persons, versity in St. Louis, USA) ing, and learning, including its

application to global seismic monitoring for the Comprehensive Nuclear- Test-Ban Treaty. The Feigenbaum Prize is supported by a grant from the Congratulations to the Feigenbaum Nii Foundation. Stuart Russell received his B.A. with 2019 AAAI Fellows! first-class honors in physics from Oxford University in 1982 and his PhD Each year a small number of fellows are recognized for their in computer science from Stanford unusual distinction in the profession and for their sustained con- University in 1986. He then joined the tributions to the field for a decade or more. An official dinner and faculty of the University of California ceremony were held in their honor during AAAI-19 in Honolulu, at Berkeley, where he is a professor Hawaii. (and formerly chair) of electrical engineering and computer sciences, holder Vincent Conitzer (Duke University, USA) of the Smith-Zadeh Chair in Engineer- ing, and director of the Center for For significant contributions to the advancement of Human-Compatible AI. artificial intelligence through integration with economics and philosophy, including game theory, mech- He has served as an adjunct profes- anism design, social choice, and ethics. sor of neurological surgery at the Uni- versity of California, San Francisco Luc De Raedt (Katholieke Universiteit and as vice-chair of the World Eco- Leuven, Belgium) nomic Forum’s Council on AI and For significant contributions to learning and reasoning Robotics. He is a recipient of the Pres- through the integration of logical and relational repre- idential Young Investigator Award of sentations in machine learning and probabilistic models. the National Science Foundation, the Kristen Grauman (University of Texas at Austin IJCAI Computers and Thought Award, and Facebook AI Research, USA) the World Technology Award (policy For significant contributions to computer vision in category), the Mitchell Prize of the visual recognition and search. American Statistical Association, the Feigenbaum Prize of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Charles Isbell (Georgia Institute Intelligence, and Outstanding Educa- of Technology, USA) tor Awards from both ACM and AAAI. For significant contributions to the field of interactive From 2012 to 2014 he held the machine learning, computing education, and for Chaire Blaise Pascal in Paris. He is an increasing access and diversity in computing. Honorary Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, and Fellow of the Association Huan Liu (Arizona State University, USA) for the Advancemnt of Artificial Intel- For significant contributions to feature selection and ligence, the Association for Computing social computing. Machinery, and the American Associa- tion for the Advancement of Science. His book Artificial Intelligence: A Jiebo Luo (University of Rochester, USA) Modern Approach (with Peter Norvig) is For significant contributions to the fields of computer the standard text in AI; it has been vision and data mining, and particularly pioneering translated into 13 languages and is work on multimodal understanding for sentiment used in over 1300 universities in 119 analysis, computational social science, and digital countries. His research covers a wide health. range of topics in artificial intelligence including machine learning, Peter Stuckey (Monash University, Australia) probabilistic reasoning, knowledge For significant contributions to logic programming and representation, planning, real-time constraint programming. decision making, multitarget tracking, computer vision, computational physiology, and philosophical foun- dations.He also works for the United Nations, developing a new global seismic monitoring system for the nuclear-test-ban treaty. His current concerns include the

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ICWSM-19 Registration Opens in March!

The Thirteenth International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media will be held at the Conference Center at Kolpinghaus München-Zentral GmbH in Munich, Germany from June 11–14, 2019. This interdisciplinary conference is a forum for researchers in computer science and social science to come together to share knowledge, discuss ideas, exchange information, and learn about cutting-edge research in diverse fields with the common theme of online social media. This overall theme includes research in new perspectives in social theories, as well as computational algorithms for analyzing social media. ICWSM is a singularly fitting venue for research that blends social science and computational approaches to answer important and challenging questions about human social behavior through social media while advancing computational tools for vast and unstructured data. ICWSM-19 will include a lively program of technical talks and posters, and invited presentations. The ICWSM workshop and tutorial programs will continue in 2019, and will be held on the first day of the conference, June 11. For complete details about these programs, please see icwsm.org/2019. Registration information will be available at the ICWSM-19 website (www.icwsm.org/ 2019/attending/registration). The early registration deadline is April 15, and the late registration deadline is May 10. For full details about the conference program, please visit the ICWSM-19 website (icwsm.org) or write to [email protected].

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AAAI Member News

In Memoriam, Alan Schultz AAAI is sad to report that Alan Schultz, former Director of the Navy Center for Applied Research in Artificial Intelligence and the Laboratory for Autonomous Systems Research at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, DC, passed away January 20 at the age of 61. Schultz served on the AAAI Executive Councilor, 2009-2012, and was active in AAAI programs for many years. Schultz was born in Richmond, Virginia on May 9, 1957. He attended American University where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in print journalism (1979), later earning his MS in computer science in 1988 at George Mason University. During his tenure at NRL, he expanded the research focus areas of the Center, forming NRL’s first Robotics Lab. He collaborated with scientists from a host of disciplines and institutions, and eventually served as a visiting research sci- entist at the Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute. This affiliation led to cutting-edge research in autonomous robotics systems. One of Schultz’s earliest robotic projects, a robot named Coyote, was featured in a robotic competition at the AAAI Mobile Robot Conference in 1997. Coy- ote interacted with conference attendees, served hors d’oeuvres, and won first place in the competition. In 2002, the robot GRACE, a collaboration with CMU, Northwestern University, Metri- ca, Inc., and Swarthmore College, participated in another AAAI competition. This time the robot self-navigated through a conference center to register for the conference and then went to a room where she gave a lecture and answered questions. GRACE received the Judge’s Awards for Human- Computer Interaction and for Robustness in Recovery from Action and Localization Errors, as well as the Ben Wegbreit Award for Integration of Artificial Intelligence Technologies. Schultz was a principal investigator on numerous research projects funded by the Office of Naval Research, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the National Aeronautics Space Administration, and the Department of Energy. He is the recipient of over 20 Navy Special Achievement awards for significant contributions in several scientific areas of investigation and is a recipient of the prestigious Alan Berman Research Publica- tion Award. Over the years, his research focused on the areas of human-robot interaction, autonomous systems, and adaptive systems. Because of his leadership and research, NRL is now a national and international leader in robotics research, dynamic autonomy, and human-computer interaction.

threat of autonomous weapons and Award recognizes one individual for leadership both to AAAI as a councilor the long-term future of artificial intel- extraordinary service to the AI com- and conference committee chair, and ligence and its relation to humanity. munity. The AAAI Awards Committee to the broader AI community, as the is pleased to announce that this year’s president of ICAPS. 2019 AAAI Distinguished recipient is Shlomo Zilberstein. Zilber- Shlomo Zilberstein is a professor of Service Award stein is being recognized for his sus- computer science and associate dean The 2019 AAAI Distinguished Service tained and conscientious service and for research and engagement at the

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University of Massachusetts Amherst. efforts at IBM Research, where he drove Classic Paper Honorable Mention He received his PhD from the Univer- innovation in applications to analyz- Sven Koenig and Maxim Likhachev, sity of California Berkeley and BA from ing unstructured data, business analyt- authors of D*Lite, were honored for the Technion. He studies the founda- ics and e-commerce. He has won 10 developing an incremental heuristic tions and applications of reasoning international awards for his contribu- search algorithm for robot navigation techniques that allow intelligent sys- tions to the fields of machine learning, in unknown terrain that is easy to tems to operate autonomously while data mining and natural language pro- understand, analyze and extend. coping with uncertainty and limited cessing — including KDD Best Applica- Sven Koenig is a professor in com- resources, as well as recognize their tion Paper Awards in 2010 and 2013, puter science at the University of limitations and obtain human assis- and the INFORMS Innovative Applica- Southern California. Most of his tance. In collaboration with industry, tions in Analytics Award 2014. In 2014, research centers around techniques for he has applied his research to develop- Melville cochaired KDD, and currently decision making (planning and learning service robots and autonomous serves on the editorial board of Data ing) that enable single situated agents vehicles. He has also worked with Mining and Knowledge Discovery. He has (such as robots or decision-support sys- social scientists on wider understand- also been on the organizing commit- tems) and teams of agents to act intel- ing of technology’s impact on equity tees of ICML, KDD, CIKM, and WSDM. ligently in their environments and and work. Zilberstein has published Melville has a PhD in AI from the Uni- exhibit goal-directed behavior in real- more than 250 research papers and versity of Texas at Austin, and bache- time. Koenig is the current chair of the delivered numerous talks and tutorials. lors degrees in computer science and ACM Special Interest Group on AI A fellow of AAAI, he is a recipient of mathematics from Brandeis University. (SIGAI) and a fellow of both AAAI and NSF CAREER award and six best paper Raymond J. Mooney is a professor in AAAS. He was conference cochair of awards. He is a former president of the Department of Computer Science AAMAS 2018 and ICAPS 2004 and pro- ICAPS (2010–12), councilor of AAAI at the University of Texas at Austin. He gram cochair of ICAPS 2018, AAAI (2011-14), and chair of its Internation- received his PhD in 1988 from the Uni- 2015, and AAMAS 2005. al Committee (2013-14). A former edi- versity of Illinois at Urbana-Cham- Maxim Likhachev is an associate tor in chief of JAIR (2011–12), chair of paign. He is an author of over 170 pub- professor at Carnegie Mellon Universi- the AAAI Conference Committee lished research papers, primarily in the ty, directing Search-Based Planning (2015-18), and program chair of ICAPS areas of machine learning and natural Laboratory (SBPL). His group research- (2004, 2015) and ISAIM (2006), he is language processing. He was the presi- es heuristic search, decision-making, also director of the AI Access Founda- dent of the International Machine and planning algorithms, all with tion, which facilitates the dissemina- Learning Society from 2008–2011, pro- applications to the control of complex tion of scientific results in artificial gram cochair for AAAI 2006, general autonomous single- and multirobotic intelligence. chair for HLT-EMNLP 2005, and systems. Likhachev obtained his PhD 2019 AAAI Classic Paper Award cochair for ICML 1990. He is a Fellow in computer science from Carnegie of the American Association for Artifi- Mellon University, and has published The 2019 AAAI Classic Paper Award more than 100 papers in journals and was given to the authors of the cial Intelligence, the Association for conferences on AI and robotics. His paper(s) deemed most influential from Computing Machinery, and the Asso- work on the anytime D* algorithm, an the Eighteenth National Conference ciation for Computational Linguistics anytime planning algorithm for dy - on Artificial Intelligence, held in 2002 and the recipient of best paper awards in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The from AAAI-96, KDD-04, ICML-05 and namic environments, was named the 2019 recipients of the AAAI Classic ACL-07. Influential Ten-Year Paper at the 2017 Paper Award were Prem Melville, Ray- Ramadass Nagarajan is a principal meeting of the International Confer- mond J. Mooney, and Ramadass Nagar- engineer at Intel Corporation where he ence on Automated Planning and ajan for their paper Content-Boosted currently leads the architecture devel- Scheduling. He was also selected for Collaborative Filtering for Improved opment for next generation datacenter the 2010 DARPA Computer Science Recommendations. The authors were processors. He holds 11 patents and Study Panel that recognizes promising honored for showing a way to comple- has authored 14 peer-reviewed articles faculty in computer science. in areas spanning microprocessor ment content-based and collaborative AAAI 2020 Award Nominations filtering approaches in recommenda- architectures and machine learning. tion systems. Melville presented an His interests include system-on-chip For information about nominations invited talk during the conference in architecture, power and performance for AAAI 2020 Awards, please contact recognition of this honor. optimization, on-chip interconnect Carol Hamilton at awards20@ aaai.org. architecture and hardware acceleration Prem Melville is the head of Machine AAAI/EAAI 2019 Learning at Millennium Management, for emerging workloads. Nagarajan Outstanding Educator Award a leading global investment firm. Prior holds a PhD in computer sciences from to that, he was the founder and CEO of the University of Texas at Austin and a The AAAI/EAAI Outstanding Educator Social Alpha, providing social analytics BA in computer science and engineer- was established in 2016 to recognize a solutions for financial markets. ing from the Indian Institute of Tech- person (or group of people) who has Melville also led machine learning nology, Madras, India. (have) made major contributions to AI

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Join Us in New York for AAAI-20 The Thirty-Fourth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-20) and the Thirty-Second Con- ference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-20), will be held in New York, New York, USA, from February 7–12, 2020. The technical conference will continue its four-day schedule, preceded by the workshop and tutorial programs. AAAI-20 will be held at the Hilton New York Midtown Hotel. Located in the heart of New York City in Midtown Manhattan, the Hilton New York Midtown hotel is within walking dis- tance from New York’s premier attractions such as Times Square, Radio City Music Hall, Fifth Avenue shopping, the Broadway Theatre District, Central Park, The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) and many more iconic New York landmarks. Manhattan’s extraordinary cityscape provides a dramatic charge for people of all interests and ages. Beyond Manhattan, New York’s five boroughs have five distinct personalities, with their own vibrant cultures, dynamic art scenes and world-renowned shopping and dining. For complete information about options in New York, please visit www.nycgo.com. The 2020 Call for Papers will be available soon at www.aaai.org/aaai20. Please join us in 2020 in New York as AAAI celebrates 40 years of championing AI!

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2019 Robert S. Engelmore Memorial Lecture Award

he Robert S. Engelmore Memorial Lecture award was established in 2003 to honor TDr. Robert S. Engelmore’s extraordinary service to AAAI, AI Magazine, and the AI applications community, and his contributions to applied AI. The annual keynote lecture is presented at the Innovative Applications of Artifi- cial Intelligence Conference. Topics encompass Engelmore’s wide interests in AI, and each lecture is linked to a subsequent article published upon approval by AI Magazine. The lecturer and, therefore, the author for the magazine article, are chosen jointly by the IAAI Program Committee and the editor of AI Magazine.

AAAI congratulates the 2019 recipient of this award, Milind Tambe, University of Southern California, who was honored for outstanding research contributions in the area of multia- Milind Tambe, gent systems and their application to problems University of Southern California of societal significance. Tambe presented his award lecture, AI and Multiagent Systems for Social Good, at the Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.

Milind Tambe is the Helen N. and Emmett H. Jones Professor in Engineering and founding codirector of the Center for AI in Society at the University of Southern Cali- fornia. He is a fellow of AAAI and ACM, and recipient of the IJCAI John McCarthy Award, ACM/SIGAI Autonomous Agents Research Award, INFORMS Wagner prize, the Rist Prize of the Military Operations Research Society, the Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foun- dation Homeland security award, International Foundation for Agents and Multiagent Systems influential paper award, Meritorious Team Commendation from the US Coast Guard and LA Airport Police, and Certificate of Appreciation from US Federal Air Marshals Service.

education that provide long-lasting of higher education venues (or the experimentation and scholarship to benefits to the AI community. Exam- general public) about AI. AAAI is assess and improve AI pedagogy, and ples might include innovating teach- pleased to announce the 2019 award is the many resources shared with the ing methods, providing service to the being given to Ashok Goel (Georgia community at large. This award is AI education community, generating Institute of Technology) for his sus- jointly sponsored by AAAI and the pedagogical resources, designing cur- tained excellence in teaching, innova- Symposium on Educational Advances ricula, and educating students outside tion in using AI to teach AI, scientific in Artificial Intelligence. Goel present-

SPRING 2019 89 AAAI News ed an invited talk (Experiments in AAAI-19 Outstanding Rajiv Ratn Shah, Ponnurangam Ku- Teaching AI) at EAAI-19. Paper Awards maraguru, and Roger Zimmermann, Goel is a professor of computer sci- for Mind Your Language: Abuse and This year, AAAI’s Conference on Artifi- ence and the director of the PhD pro- Offense Detection for Code-Switched cial Intelligence honored the following gram in human-centered computing Languages. four papers, which exemplify high in the School of Interactive Comput- standards in technical contribution ing at Georgia Institute of Technology. IAAI-19 Innovative and exposition by regular and student Application Awards He conducts research into artificial authors. intelligence and cognitive science with The AAAI-19 Outstanding Paper Each year the AAAI Conference on a focus on computational design and Award was presented to Yonathan Innovative Applications selects the creativity. He is the editor of AI Maga- Efroni, Gal Dalal, Bruno Scherrer, and recipients of the IAAI Innovative zine and a cochair of the 41st Annual Shie Mannor for their paper How to Application Award. These deployed Meeting of the Cognitive Science Soci- Combine Tree-Search Methods in Rein- application case study papers must ety. He is a coeditor of Blended Learning forcement Learning. Noam Brown and describe deployed applications with in Practice: A Guide for Practitioners and Tuomas Sandholm received an Out- measurable benefits that include some Researchers to be published by The MIT standing Paper Honorable Mention for aspect of AI technology. The applica- Press in 2019. their paper Solving Imperfect-Informa- tion needs to have been in production use by its final end-users for sufficient- AAAI-19 Program tion Games via Discounted Regret Minimization. ly long so that the experience in use Committee Awards The AAAI-19 Outstanding Student can be meaningfully collected and AAAI-19 program cochairs Pascal Van Paper Award was presented to Mike reported. Hentenryck and Zhi-Hua Zhou recog- Wu, Milan Mosse, Noah Goodman, The five 2019 winners were A Genet- nized the following members of the and Chris Piech, for their paper Zero ic Algorithm for Finding a Small and AAAI-19 program committee for their Shot Learning for Code Education: Diverse Set of Recent News Stories on a distinguished service on the commit- Rubric Sampling with Deep Learning Given Subject: How We Generate tee. These individuals went above and Inference. Shayegan Omidshafiei, AAAI’s AI-Alert, by Joshua Eckroth and beyond the expectations for the role, Dong Ki Kim, Miao Liu, Gerald Eric Schoen; Large Scale Personalized showing exceptional judgment, clarity, Tesauro, Matthew Riemer, Chris Ama- Categorization of Financial Transac- knowledgeability, and leadership in to, Murray Campbell, and Jonathan tions by Christopher Lesner, Alexander reaching a consensus decision while How received an Outstanding Student Ran, Marko Rukonic, and Wei Wang; serving on the committee. Paper Honorable Mention for their Transforming Underwriting in the Life paper Learning to Teach in Coopera- Insurance Industry by Marc Maier, Outstanding Senior Program Hayley Carlotto, Freddie Sanchez, Committee Members tive Multiagent Reinforcement Learn- ing. Sherriff Balogun, and Sears Merritt; Xiang Bai (Huazhong University of Sci- Automated Dispatch of Helpdesk ence and Technology, China) Student Abstracts Awards Email Tickets: Pushing the Limits with Hendrik Blockeel (KU Leuven, Belgium) Each year AAAI honors its student AI by Atri Mandal, Nikhil Malhotra, abstract presenters with two awards: Shivali Agarwal, Anupama Ray, and Zico Kolter (Carnegie Mellon Giriprasad Sridhara; and Grading University, USA) the Best 3-Minute Presentation and the Best Poster. In 2019, there were 19 Uncompilable Programs by Rohit Michele Lombardi (Universià di finalists selected to compete for the Takhar and Varun Aggarwal. Bologna, Italy) best 3-Minute Presentation from Special Computing Community Aditya Menon (Google Research, USA) among a field of 90 student abstracts. The finalists presented oral spotlight Consortium Blue Sky Awards Steven Schockaert (Cardiff Univ., UK) presentations during the first day of AAAI-19, in cooperation with the CRA Outstanding Program the technical conference. The winners Computing Community Consortium Committee Members were Zhiwei Zeng, Chunyan Miao, (CCC), honored three papers in the Cyril Leung, Zhiqi Shen, and Jing Jih Senior Member track that presented Pascal Bercher (University of Ulm, Chin, for Computing Argumentative ideas and visions that can stimulate Germany) Explanations in Bipolar Argumenta- the research community to pursue new Stephen Cranefield (University of tion Frameworks; and Michal Zajac, directions, such as new problems, new Otago, New Zealand) Konrad Zolna, Negar Rostamzadeh, application domains, or new method- Sheng-Jun Huang (Nanjing University and Pedro Pinheiro for Adversarial ologies. The winners received 2019 of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China) Framing for Image and Video Classifi- Blue Sky Idea travel awards, sponsored cation. by the CCC. Dan Malinsky (Johns Hopkins Universi- The winner of the best poster award, Pat Langley was awarded first place ty, USA) selected through an online conference- for Explainable, Normative, and Justi- Giovanni Sileno (Télécom ParisTech, wide poll, was presented to Raghav fied Agency. Francesca Rossi and France) Kapoor, Yaman Kumar, Kshitij Rajput, Nicholas Mattei were awarded second

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Submissions for HCOMP-19 Are Due in June! The Seventh AAAI Conference on Human Computation and Crowdsourcing (HCOMP 2019) will be held October 28–30 at Skamania Lodge in Washington State near the Columbia Gorge River, just 45 minutes from Portland, Oregon. This year is the 10-year anniversary of the very first HCOMP workshop in Paris, and to celebrate, there will be special events, talks, and panels throughout the conference. HCOMP is the premier venue for disseminating the latest research findings on crowdsourcing and human computation. While artificial intelligence (AI) and human-computer interaction (HCI) rep- resent traditional mainstays of the conference, HCOMP believes strongly in inviting, fostering, and promoting broad, interdisciplinary research. This field is particularly unique in the diversity of disciplines it draws upon, and contributes to, ranging from human-centered qualitative studies and HCI design, to computer science and artificial intelligence, economics and the social sciences, all the way to digital humanities, policy, and ethics. We promote the exchange of advances in human computation and crowdsourcing not only among researchers, but also engineers and practitioners, to encourage dialogue across disciplines and communities of practice. This year, work that generates new insights into the human computation side of HCOMP, such as new understandings about human cognition, human-in-the-loop intelligence systems, human-AI interaction and collaboration, algorithmic and interface techniques for augmenting human abilities to perform tasks, and other issues that affect how humans collaborate with AI systems (such as bias, fairness and interpretability), is encouraged. Technical abstract submissions are due June 3, followed by full papers on June 5. For complete information about the conference, please see www.humancomputation.com, or write to [email protected].

SPRING 2019 91 AAAI News place for Building Ethically Bounded Welcome to New Officers and are therefore bound by some legal AI. The third place award went to Bar- Councilors, and Thanks to responsibilities, including duties of ry Smyth for Recommender Systems: A Retiring Officers and Coun- care, loyalty, and obedience. He Healthy Obsession. cilors explained the meaning of each of these terms, and referred new members to Gil noted that the announcement of the references included in the message AAAI Executive the new Council members had been sent to them. He also encouraged all delayed until the time of this meeting Council Elections councilors to read the AAAI Bylaws when their transition onto the Council and be familiar with their content. Please watch your mailboxes for an would be official. She welcomed the announcement of the 2019 AAAI Elec- new members of the Council: Cristina Committee Opportunities tion. The link to the electronic version Conati, Eric Eaton, Ayanna Howard, Gil gave an overview of the commit- of the annual AAAI Ballot will be and Ariel Procaccia, all of whom intro- tees, and referred people to two docu- mailed to all regular individual AAAI duced themselves. Gil also congratu- ments describing the committees and members in the spring. This year, the lated Bart Selman, the new President- listing who is currently on the com- membership will elect four new coun- Elect of AAAI. mittees. She noted that some AAAI cilors, who will each serve three-year Gil then took a moment to thank committees are standing committees, terms. The online voting system is Rao Kambhampati for his leadership as as defined in the bylaws, but that ad expected to close on June 15. Please president of AAAI, noting his special hoc committees are also often formed note that the ballot will be available efforts in expanding AAAI’s interna- to study special or short-term issues. A via the online system only. If you have tional outreach and membership, few committees are staffed by invita- not provided AAAI with an up-to-date growing the conference, and serving as tion only, but most are open to and email address, please do so immediate- a great spokesperson for the field. She welcome councilor involvement. Gil ly by writing to membership19@ also thanked Tom Dietterich, who is invited the current members of the aaai.org. stepping down as past president, for Council to introduce themselves and always going above and beyond in serving the organization during the state which committees they chair or last six years. She noted that he tackled serve on. The chairs of the committee AAAI Executive Council some significant issues during his gave brief summaries of the primary focus of each of their committees. Meeting Minutes tenure, and always has a tremendous sense of the importance of AAAI and Conference Report The AAAI Executive Council met via its role in the greater AI community. teleconference on September 24, 2018. Kambhampati added that Dietterich Peter Stone gave a brief summary of Attending: Yolanda Gil, Rao Kamb- had been a valuable source of informa- the current status of the 2019 confer- hampati, Bart Selman, Tom Dietterich, tion to him during his time as presi- ence. After 7,745 initial submissions, David Smith, Cristina Conati, Eric dent, and thanked him for all his work there were currently about 5,960 Eaton, Gene Freuder, Ashok Goel, with the organization and the wider AI papers being reviewed. The bulk of the Ayanna Howard, David Leake, community. attrition was due to authors who sub- Mausam, Michela Milano, Claire Mon- Gil also thanked the four outgoing mitted abstracts, but did not follow up teleoni, Ariel Procaccia, Steve Smith, councilors: Charles Isbell, Diane Lit- with papers. However, Stone men- Matthijs Spaan, Peter Stone, Kiri man, Jennifer Neville, and Kiri tioned that he had suggested that the Wagstaff, Carol Hamilton. Wagstaff. Gil noted that Charles Isbell program chairs be fairly aggressive Not Attending: Blai Bonet, Charles will continue as the AAAI Liaison to about summary rejects. This status was Isbell, Diane Litman, Jennifer Neville, the Computing Research Association. given to papers that were determined Cynthia Rudin (via email), Qiang She thanked Kiri Wagstaff for her spe- to have no chance of being accepted Yang. cial efforts on the Education and Mem- for AAAI, and Stone was confident that Rao Kambhampati called the meet- bership Committees, and asked Kiri to the area chairs (AC) and senior pro- ing to order at 8:10 AM, explaining the say a few words about her time on the gram committee members (SPC) could transition to new members of the Exec- Council. make this determination with high utive Council, and turned the meeting reliability. The program chairs also over to Yolanda Gil, the incoming Council Responsibilities double-checked all papers in this cate- president of AAAI. David Smith, AAAI Secretary-Treasurer, gory, and if an AC, SPC, or program noted that a message had been sent to chair disagreed with the summary Approval of Minutes the new councilors regarding the struc- reject, the paper was put back into the Gil drew the Council’s attention to the ture of the Council and councilor review process. About 3 percent of the minutes of the last meeting on July 26, responsibilities. Smith reviewed a few papers were rejected through the sum- 2018, which had been circulated for of the points with the full Council. In mary reject process before the review edits and approval prior to the meet- particular, he stressed that the mem- process began, and were accompanied ing. There being no further edits, the bers of the Executive Council are mem- by a brief statement explaining the rea- minutes were approved as submitted. bers of the board of a corporation, and son for the rejection. There have been

92 AI MAGAZINE AAAI News some complaints, which the program staff and support to deal with the nities might include work in continu- chairs are carefully reviewing. Stone heightened interest in AI and the ing education, but also offering brief noted that the summary reject process explosion of technical paper submis- tutorials in specific application areas is critical because of the large number sions. by experts in the fields. of submissions, and the conference Kiri Wagstaff thanked everyone for Ayanna Howard noted her interest committee may want to review how the opportunity to participate on the in the social implications of AI as a aggressive we want to be about apply- Council. She encouraged new mem- result of its use in society, correlating ing it. Stone also mentioned that some bers to find something that they are that with the social responsibility we authors appreciate the process because very interested in and work to make have to think about the implications it allows them to revise the paper and that happen. It is often hard to take the about what we are doing, and to teach send it to the next conference quickly, huge volume of ideas and make them our students to do the same. She is also rather than waiting until the end of come to fruition unless some decides committed to the issues of access and the review process because of the pro- that they are going to shepherd a proj- inclusiveness in what we do, and to hibition on dual submissions. Aside ect through to completion. fostering the K-12 and undergraduate from the paper review process, Stone spaces. She noted that the people who reported that everything else is pro- Incoming Council Member are designing the systems for the gressing smoothly and full reports will Interests and Goals future need to be representative of the be given at the conference. Bart Selman noted that this is a very entire world — not just the world we Kambhampati noted that with such a exciting time for AI and AAAI, with AI live in. small number of summary rejections, moving rapidly into society and the Ariel Procaccia would like AAAI to the negative publication perception of real world. With industry and govern- lead the way in communicating with the process might outweigh any time- ment interest, as well as expanded the public and correcting the misinfor- saving benefits. He encouraged Stone to funding opportunities, this is a unique mation that is generated. He would discuss it with the conference commit- time when AAAI can broaden its role also like to see AAAI point journalists tee for feedback. Mausam reported that and establish itself as a point of infor- to qualified AI scientists for their he felt the process was well-structured mation and advice for many organiza- research. He suggested that subsets of with several sets of eyes overseeing the tions on how to proceed with AI. Sel- people in the community could write process, but felt that not all SPC mem- man is very interested in the ethics and opinion pieces. Procaccia noted that bers participated in the process and that impact of AI, and encouraged the Carnegie Mellon is starting an AI there was very little time to execute it. Council to draw on member and major, and he has served on the com- Matthijs Spaan agreed that it was a good Council expertise to provide informa- mittee to develop that curriculum. He idea, but suggested that more advance tion to the general community. has thought a lot about AI education, warning of the window to identify sum- Cristina Conati’s work is interdisci- and has found that even the most basic mary rejects might be useful and more plinary in the fields of AI and human- AI course still needs to be defined well, productive in the future. centered interaction (HCI). She is and this could provide a huge service encouraged by all that AAAI is doing in to the community. Retiring Council that space and hopes to expand AAAI’s Gil welcomed and congratulated all Member Reflections work in that area. She would like to the new councilors, and encouraged Tom Dietterich shared a document strengthen ties to other conferences retiring councilors to continue to par- with the Council that he had put that encourage work focussing on AI ticipate in AAAI activities. together at the beginning of his presi- and its application to a specific area, dency, which outlined his strategic such as education. She is also interest- Code of Ethics and plan and thoughts for the future. He ed in exploring ways to deal with the Code of Conduct noted that he ran a focus group at explosion of technical paper submis- Gil reminded the Council of the AAAI-15 conference and followed that sions and the need for good reviewers importance of these two documents, up with a survey to the membership. to preserve the high quality of the and the need for them. In addition to The number one request from the sur- AAAI review process. Finally, she creating a mechanism to deal with vey was for AAAI to provide more edu- would like to work on providing accu- potential issues that might arise at a cational opportunities, including rate information to the public about AAAI event, we also need to establish things like the distinguished speaker AI. AAAI member guidelines for ethical program and continuing education Eric Eaton also expressed his interest behavior in the light of the explosion programs. In addition, educational in the connection between AI and oth- of AI research and development outreach to K-12 and college-level sup- er areas as well as other disciplines, throughout the world. Gil reviewed port. In response to that, the Educa- such as medicine, law, or finance. He the development of the current docu- tion Committee was created, and Diet- noted the opportunity to market these ments, and reasons for the current terich’s hope is that the committee will as successes of AI to the public, as well course that the Ethics Committee has continue to do more programs in that as creating educational opportunities taken. space. He also noted that we should and helping to bridge between AI and David Smith noted that the Council ensure that the AAAI office has the other disciplines. Educational opportu- had been discussing the AAAI Member

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Code of Conduct, developed by the AI is now so prevalent in all types of wording increases awareness of what Ethics Committee. In the recent review computing and computer science to strive for, which is a reasonable goal of this document and after feedback departments, it makes sense for AAAI for these documents. Matthijs noted from legal counsel, Gil and Smith to adopt a similar Code of Conduct. that some of the language seemed decided to separate it into several ACM formed a task force to study pro- unrelated to AI practices and research, pieces. The current documents under fessional ethics, and as noted earlier, and wondered if language could be consideration are a Code of Conduct, a engaged legal counsel to carefully substituted that would be more specific Code of Conduct for Conferences and review the role of a professional socie- to AI. Events, a AAAI Ethics Enforcement Pol- ty in publishing a code of ethics. Rao Kambhampati wondered if the icy, and a Conflict of Interest Policy for Gil suggested that the Council con- ACM document was written earlier Executive Council Members and Offi- sider the four documents separately, than some other similar documents, cers. To expand the Code of Conduct concentrating first on the AAAI Code and does not reflect the current feeling beyond what had been discussed earli- of Conduct for society members. She that these documents should be more er, they looked at the ACM Code of noted that this document is much specific in nature, and less aspirational Conduct. They found it to be more broader than the one originally drafted in tone. He suggested that adopting the comprehensive, with a more positive by the Executive Council, and takes a ACM code may not be consistent with tone. They proposed that the Council more educational tone, listing things the current trend, and that the tone of adopt that Code, changing it minimal- that people should strive to do. Ariel the document drafted by the Council in ly to meet the needs of AAAI. ACM has Procaccia noted that there are possibly February addresses this need. already drawn up guidelines for this two ways to present a Code of Conduct Tom Dietterich reminded the group kind of adoption by other groups, so — one being as a means to state a posi- that the NIPS/ICML documents are the process is relatively simple. tion about what the society believes in, specifically about events, so they can- The Code of Conduct for Confer- and the other being to present a code not be compared with the general ences and Events is based on another that, if violated, will result in discipli- Code of Conduct for society members. similar code adopted by a sister confer- nary action. Gil noted that the ACM Code of Con- ence, with several links to other codes Gil noted that people may have duct was adopted in June 2018, so it is now in use. The Conflict of Interest varying opinions about what is ethical, recent and actually supercedes much policy is related but separate from the and the tone of the current document of what was contained in the draft put other documents in that it only applies addresses ethical behavior without together by the Council in February. to the members of the Executive Coun- being dogmatic. Promoting good uses While addressing many of the same cil. Although this was not required at of technology and honest behavior by points, it supplements that draft with the time that AAAI was incorporated, members is the primary focus, rather additional clauses about important it is now and each year the tax return than outlining behavior that would issues, such as ethics in the review includes a question about its existence. result in expulsion from AAAI. process. Although the IRS is primarily con- The AAAI legal counsel advised, Gil then turned the Council’s atten- cerned with financial conflicts of inter- however, that it is important to have a tion to the Code of Conduct for Con- est, AAAI has included additional policy for dealing with infractions if ferences and Events. She noted that wording about conflicts of interest due we publish a Code of Conduct, and she had referred to numerous similar to other professional commitments. that we need to be prepared to act and documents by other conference, soci- Smith asked the Council for feed- act consistently. Otherwise, the organ- eties, and other organizations. A list of back on the path that the committee is ization becomes liable, which is the pointers to these organizations is taking in separating the documents reason why the committee also created included at the bottom of the docu- and also modeling the Code of Con- the AAAI Ethics Enforcement Policy. ment. She reminded the group that duct after that of ACM. Carla Mon- David Smith also noted that doing complaints have already been received teleone suggested that the committee nothing will also expose the organiza- and that it is important to have a doc- also look at the recent documents pub- tion to liability should a member ument in place outlining what our lished by NIPS and ICML for the Code behave inappropriately at a conference position is on acceptable and unac- of Conduct for Conferences and or with regard to publications. He ceptable behaviors, as well as a means Events. Gil asked if the NIPS and ICML emphasized that all current documents of reporting them. She asked the mem- documents differ widely from the will require legal review, but that AAAI bers of the Council if anyone would ACM Code of Conduct. Gil noted that may be open to legal repercussions like to work on revisions, or if they felt the joint NIPS-ICML document is pri- with or without these documents in it was fine as is. marily an Event Code of Conduct, so it place. Conati felt that there were a few was reviewed by the AAAI committee Cristina Conati supported the com- points that needed further specifica- in that context rather than in the mittee’s plan to adopt the ACM policy, tion. This would be particularly impor- broader Code of Conduct/Ethics for given the fact that they spent a long tant for individuals who are tasked society members. The latter document time considering all issues and per- with enforcing the policy via the Ethics deals with all kinds of conduct in the spectives before finalizing their docu- Enforcement Policy. Gil suggested that broader field of computing. Given that ments. She emphasized that the ACM giving examples might be appropriate,

94 AI MAGAZINE AAAI News but that the general language of the minor modifications, (2) the proposed for about two years. He will share that main document should be less specific AAAI Code of Conduct for Events and with the current Council, and would in nature because of individual inter- Conferences with minor modifica- like to discuss it further at the next pretations of what is appropriate and tions, (3) the AAAI Conflict of Interest meeting. He noted that the interactive what is not. Policy as is or with minor modifica- magazine has been put on hold during Mausam also noted that the docu- tions, and (4) a revised short document the transition in the publications ment does not differentiate between a or new paragraph in the Code of Con- process, but shared a few comments. personal offense and rigorous scientific duct for Events and Conferences, stat- The new format will require a signifi- questioning. He suggested that the ing that violations will be brought to cant effort, which will in turn require document could encourage individuals the attention of the Council, who will significant resources, including a full- to communicate their discomfort at decide on a case by case basis how to time staff member, and a half-time per- the time of the incident so that the proceed, using the AAAI Bylaws as a son to work at the editor’s home insti- offending party is immediately aware guideline. Modifications would be tution. Gil expressed her support for of their transgression and has the made by a small subcommittee specifi- the additional staff in the publications opportunity to correct their behavior. cally tasked with this process, and area. There being no objection from Gil pointed out some language in the revised documents would be circulated the Council, she suggested that Goel document that addresses these con- to the Council for a vote. Gil asked if begin to draft job descriptions for these cerns. She also referred to passages in David Smith and Cynthia Rudin would additional staff members. She asked the document that refer to “aggressive remain on the committee, and also David Smith to investigate the finan- or intimidating questioning or verbal asked Cristina Conati, Matthijs Spaan, cial impact of this plan. attacks,” which could certainly not be and Mausam to join the committee, Goel also encouraged the new and considered legitimate conference and work together to polish the docu- current councilors to contribute opin- behavior. ments. Mausam noted, and David ion pieces or other articles to AI Maga- Kiri Wagstaff noted that the bulleted Smith agreed, that a lawyer should zine, noting that he has launched a list is clearly an enumeration of sever- look at the final proposed documents. new column in the magazine specifi- al types of harassment, and would not Kambhampati wondered if there was cally for members of the Executive Council. Contributions should be be confused with scholarly or profes- someone in the community with legal 1,000-1,500 words. sion conference behavior. Several sug- expertise who could serve on the com- The meeting adjourned at 9:25 AM. gestions were made for wordsmithing, mittee. There were no objections to which the Ethics Committee will con- this proposed process. sider for the final document. Gil reviewed the purpose of the Publications Update Conflict of Interest document, which David Leake reported that the upgrade is to acknowledge conflicts among to the Open Journal Systems an- Council members and establish a nounced at the last Council meeting process to address them. Eric Eaton has now been completed. The upgrade had questions about the scope of con- provides more flexibility in role defini- flicts of interest, which David Smith tion and assignments, as well as sever- addressed. The policy only applies to al other important features. Leake is situations where a Council member chairing a transition committee with has a direct involvement in a decision Tom Dietterich to map out roles and regarding a specific conflict. procedures for AAAI publications with The greatest concern was expressed a change in personnel during the next regarding the Ethics Enforcement Poli- 18 months. Mike Hamilton has been cy, which called for very detailed and investigating several vendors who extensive procedures for investigating could handle the production of the AI infractions. Council members were Magazine, as well as the AAAI confer- particularly concerned with the fact ence proceedings and other publica- that they might be asked to make judg- tions. The search for a publications ments that might be beyond their managing editor is still in process, and scope of expertise, and that the process is expected to be more successful once for decision-making called for a great all the production mechanisms are in deal of discretion and subjectivity. Gil place. The size of the proceedings has also noted that the process could be resulted in increased costs, and in the quite onerous for AAAI officers. long term, the Publications Committee Gil asked the Council if there was will be examining this impact as well. any objection from the Council to the Ashok Goel has prepared a proposal adoption of (1) the ACM Code of for an interactive version of AI Maga- Ethics and Professional Behavior with zine, which has been under discussion

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