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Winter News from the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence

AAAI-18 Registration Student Activities looking for internships or jobs to meet with representatives from over 30 com - As part of its outreach to students, Is Open! panies and academia in an informal AAAI-18 will continue several special "meet-and-greet" atmosphere. If you AAAI-18 registration information is programs specifically for students, are representing a company, research now available at aaai.org/aaai18, and including the Doctoral Consortium, organization or university and would online registration can be completed at the Student Abstract Program, Lunch like to participate in the job fair, please regonline.com/aaai18. The deadline with a Fellow, and the Volunteer Pro - send an email with your contact infor - for late registration rates is January 5, gram, in addition to the following: 2018. Complete tutorial and workshop mation to [email protected] no later than January 5. The organizers of information, as well as other special Student Reception the AAAI/ACM SIGAI Job Fair are John program information is available at AAAI will welcome all students to Dickerson (University of Maryland, these sites. AAAI-18 by hosting an evening stu - USA) and Nicholas Mattei (IBM, USA). dent reception on Friday, February 2. Make Your Hotel Reservation Although the reception is especially The Winograd Now! beneficial to new students at the con - Schema Challenge AAAI has reserved a block of rooms at ference, all are welcome! Please join us and make all the newcomers welcome! Nuance Communications, Inc. is spon - the Hilton New Orleans Riverside at soring a competition to encourage reduced conference rates. The cut-off Breakfast with Champions: A efforts to develop programs that can date for conference rate reservations is Women’s Mentoring Event solve the Winograd Schema Challenge, Wednesday, January 3, 2018 at 5:00pm an alternative to the Turing Test devel - AAAI will hold its fourth women's New Orleans time. Please see oped by Hector Levesque, winner of mentoring event for students and jun - aaai.org/Conferences/AAAI-18/hotel- the 2013 IJCAI Award for Research ior women professionals to meet with and-travel/ for complete information. Excellence. The test will be organized, senior women in artificial intelligence. administered, and evaluated by Com - Breakfast with Champions will be held AAAI-18 Invited monsenseReasoning.org which is ded - Monday morning, February 5. Speaker Program icated to furthering and promoting In addition to over 950 accepted tech - AAAI/ACM SIGAI Job Fair research in the field of automated com - monsense reasoning. Contestants nical papers, the AAAI-18 technical The 2018 AAAI/ACM Job Fair will be should email Charles Ortiz charles. program will include an outstanding held Monday, February 5 at 4:00 – 6:00 [email protected] stating their intent line-up of invited speakers. A prelimi - pm. The formal two-hour event will be to enter the contest no later than Jan - nary list of invited presentations preceded by an opportunity for several uary 20, 2018. For complete informa - includes Cynthia Dwork (Harvard / hours of informal mingling. The Job tio, please see aaai.org/Conferences/ Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Fair is open to all AAAI-18 technical AAAI-18/aaai18winograd/. Study); Zoubin Ghahramani (Universi - registrants. All other participants (em - ty of Cambridge / Uber); Joseph Hal - ployers and job seekers) must register pern (Cornell University), speaking on by selecting the appropriate category AAAI Executive Council Actual Causality: A Survey; Charles at the AAAI registration site (see Meeting Minutes Isbell (Georgia Institute of Technolo - aaai.org/Conferences/AAAI-18/regis - gy); and Percy Liang (Stanford Univer - tration). The AAAI Executive Council Meeting sity), speaking on How Should We The 2018 AAAI/ACM Job Fair is a took place in San Francisco, California, Evaluate Machine Learning for AI?. place for students and professionals USA on February 5, 2017.

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dled requests from participants who could not attend due to immigration Second Call for Nominations for issues. Luckily, the number was not 2018 Executive Council Election large, but a full refund, where indicat - The 2018 Nominating Committee is seeking nominations from the AAAI ed and/or publication in the proceed - membership for the positions of AAAI President-Elect and Executive ings if an accepted author were both Councilor. In 2018, AAAI members will elect one individual to serve a accommodated. In addition, authors two-year term as president-elect, followed by two years as president, and were given the option of presenting finally, two years as immediate past president. In addition, members will their work via video or by delegating to elect four new councilors to serve three-year terms on the AAAI Execu - a colleague. Shlomo Zilberstein sug - tive Council. All elected officers and councilors are expected to attend all gested that there may be ways for oth - council meetings each year (usually 1-2 in person and 1-2 via telecon), er conferences, such as IJCAI, to work and actively participate in AAAI activities. Nominees must be current with AAAI to accommodate author members of AAAI. The Nominating Committee encourages all regular needs should the issue persist or grow AAAI members in good standing to place an individual's name before in the future. Kambhampati also noted them for consideration. (Student and institutional members are not eli - that the first meeting of the trustees for gible to submit candidates' names.) The Nominating Committee, in turn, the Partnership in AI was held on the will nominate two candidates for president-elect and eight candidates previous Friday. AAAI is a member of for councilor in early spring. In addition to members' recommendations, this group, as they recently opened up the committee will actively recruit individuals in order to provide a bal - membership to nonprofits and soci - anced slate of candidates. AAAI regular members will vote in late spring, eties in the field. There were 6 compa - and the new members of the Executive Council will be installed in the nies and 6 nonprofits represented, and summer of 2018. Kambhampati reported that the goals To submit a candidate's name for consideration, please send the fol - of the group are well aligned with lowing information to Carol Hamilton, Executive Director, AAAI, 2275 AAAI efforts. East Bayshore Road, Suite 160, Palo Alto, CA 94303; by fax to 650/321- 4457; or by email to [email protected]: Fellows/Awards • Name Committee Report • Affiliation Tom Dietterich reported that the pool • City, State or Province, Country of nominees for Fellow in 2017 con - tained only one woman and in the end • Email address no female honorees. The Fellows Selec - • URL tion Committee is committed to • Year of membership in AAAI broadening the scope of the nomina - • Approximate number of AAAI publications tions to include more deserving senior • At least two sentences describing the candidate and why he or she would members of the community and more be a good candidate diversity in 2018. He also reported that Please include any additional information or recommendations that the Awards Committee used semantic would be helpful to the Nominating Committee. Nominators should scholar to get impact of papers for the contact candidates prior to submitting their names to verify that they selection of the Classic Paper Award. are willing to serve, should they be elected. The deadline for nomina - Other awards given in 2017 were the tions is January 15, 2018. Distinguished Service Award (James Hendler), the Feigenbaum Prize (Yoav Shoham), and the AAAI/EAAI Out - standing Educator Award (Sebastian Thrun). Dietterich also reported that he has Attending: Rao Kambhampati, Yolan - bers of the Executive Council. The been working with ACM SIGAI on the da Gil, Tom Dietterich, Ted Senator, minutes of the November 2016 meet - establishment of a joint AI doctoral David Smith, Boi Faltings (partial), Blai ing were approved, pending one mod - dissertation award. The working com - Bonet, Sonia Chernova, Vince ification. mittee is not advocating a cash prize, Conitzer, Ashok Goel, Charles Isbell, Kambhampati presented some brief but would like to offer the winner the David Leake, Diane Litman (via skype), remarks on a variety of subjects. He opportunity to speak at AAAI and to Mausam (via skype), Jennifer Neville, announced that the current registra - cover registration and travel costs to do Francesca Rossi, Steve Smith, Kiri tion count was 1,792, and this was so. A draft proposal was circulated and Wagstaff, Qiang Yang, Shlomo Zilber - expected to increase during the next discussed by the Executive Council. stein, Carol Hamilton two days. This is the highest registra - One suggestion was to get a sponsor Not Attending: Michela Milano tion since the early 1990s. There was a for a monetary award, or to split a cash Kambhampati welcomed the mem - brief discussion about how AAAI han - prize between the two organizations

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(approximately $500). The Council that the double-blind review helps mit - Finally, the Council discussed the also discussed the creation of a named igate the problem of multiple submis - ongoing issue of finding a good algo - award with an endowment to support sions, so should be continued. The rithm for assigning papers, especially future awards. In addition, they rec - overall consensus was that no formal in light of the dramatically increasing ommended the award be listed by policy will be instituted, but program number of submissions and the grow - department and not just by university. chairs may wish to examine things ing program committee. Zilberstein Dietterich noted that the approval by more closely at the time that the CFP is noted that Shaul Markovitch had cre - ACM will take a long time, and that written. ated software to help with the assign - they hope to start that process in Zilberstein also examined the chang - ment algorithm. In conjunction with March or April so that nominations ing character of the conference with its this, the group discussed whether it could be submitted for 2018. He noted significant growth in recent years. He made sense to change submission sys - that this award would be a subgroup solicited ideas for ways to address this tems. Zilberstein suggested that anoth - award, so would not have the same change. Several suggestions were made, er comprehensive conference survey prestige as the ACM Doctoral Disserta - including organizing “birds of a feath - might be useful. tion Award. There was a brief discus - er” meetings, expanding the number of sion about having an award sponsored parallel sessions, expanding the focus Finance by AAAI only, but the group was sup - of the conference beyond the tradi - Ted Senator announced that David portive of the joint venture and noted tional academic one, expanding our Smith will be taking over for him as that it was in line with similar efforts, outreach efforts, holding sessions Secretary-Treasurer in early 2018. They such as the Doctoral Consortium. devoted to policy issues, and increasing have entered a transition period opportunities for socializing. The group whereby Smith will be involved in all Conference Committee Report discussed the current scheduling app financial discussions to allow him time Shlomo Zilberstein reported that he and web program, Guidebook, and to become familiar with AAAI’s has program chairs in place for the agreed that it lacked good search tools. finances and financial policies. Senator next two years. Sheila McIlraith and Blai Bonet agreed to help determine if reviewed the general financial princi - Kilian Weinberger will serve in 2018, its usability could be improved for ples of AAAI, including its policy of and Pascal Van Hentenryck and Zhi- 2018, as this will become even more spending up to 3-5 percent of the oper - Hua Zhou in 2019. Future chairs will important as the conference continues ating reserve on an annual basis. He have the opportunity to observe in to grow. The Council generally agreed noted that the investments have con - 2017 and 2018. He also noted that the that they want to retain the current tinued to grow over time, and that program for the current 2017 confer - model, but explore ways to change and AAAI is now enjoying a surplus after ence was very rich and exciting. Tech - grow with coexisting new programs, several years of effort to reduce an nical submissions, including main and such as AI in Practice. annual budget deficit. There are spe - special track submissions, rose by over Zilberstein noted that the AI in His - cific targets in place for the various 20% to 2,595, excluding senior mem - tory program will continue in 2017 funds in the investment portfolio, and ber papers, demos, doctoral consor - with a panel chaired by Ed Feigenbaum the general practice is to not shift tium, and student poster abstracts. on Expert Systems. The original plan funds frequently but to maintain tar - Thirty percent of submissions came was to have something every two gets by withdrawing from funds that from China, with acceptance rates for years, starting with the Shakey celebra - have become out of line. In response to these papers and US-based papers sim - tion in 2015. In order to sustain this concerns about the annual circulation ilar to overall acceptance rates. Ma - activity, Shlomo suggested that a com - of the tax return to members of the chine learning and natural language mittee be formed to select the next Council, Senator explained that the processing, were the leading subject focus. The Council suggested that the main purpose of this exercise is to areas, with strong representation from program chairs for 2019 put a subcom - maintain transparency. It is under - applications, search, vision, knowledge mittee together to address this issue. stood that Council members cannot be representation and reasoning, game Zilberstein discussed the current expected to verify all the information. theory and economic paradigms, and travel restrictions put in place by the multiagent systems. The Council dis - US government, and the resulting International cussed the issue of authors submitting uncertainty for the future. Shlomo Qiang Yang asked the Council for multiple papers, and whether a cap encouraged the Council to adopt a pol - input on effective ways to promote AI should be instituted. In some cases, icy that would help affected re - worldwide. While there has been some this practice has become quite signifi - searchers, such as allowing remote success in China and India, European cant, with one author submitting more attendance, or in-person presentation efforts have been less organized, and AI than 40 papers in 2017. The Confer - at a related conference such as IJCAI. work in that area has not been well ence Committee expressed concerns While the Council is generally in favor promoted. The Council agreed that the about load balancing and fairness to all of finding reciprocal solutions, they make-up of the committee should be authors. There has been some backlash agreed that further study and evalua - as international as possible. Several from the community when strict limits tion was required to make an informed suggestions were made, including have been imposed. Shlomo noted decision about future procedures. jointly sponsoring meetings in Europe,

WINTER 2017 109 AAAI News or jointly developing online materials more targeted campaign to individuals Council agreed to stick with the Code for promoting and explaining AI. eligible for senior member status, and of Conduct. With regard to China, Yang suggest - an effort to increase nominations for Kambhampati also announced that ed that we can collaborate with more Fellows. he is in the early stages of talks with than one group there. He also made SIGAI to co-organize a conference in several suggestions about ways to Ethics ethics within the next year, and asked reach out to China in the future, Sonia Chernova distributed a prelimi - for Council feedback on this idea. including sponsoring a recent AAAI nary draft of a AAAI Code of Ethics and Kambhampati explained that there conference keynote in China, sending Professional Conduct Statement, and would be no published proceedings. a Fellows delegation to China, or hold - solicited feedback from the Executive Because the hope is to reach out to a ing a future AAAI conference in China. Council. This statement would apply variety of research areas, publication AI Magazine could also serve as a point to all members of the Association. The needs of various communities need to of collaboration, by allowing excerpts committee reviewed similar statements be addressed. The suggestion was made in Chinese publications. Yang suggest - by ACM and IEEE in writing the state - to make journal dissemination an ed that AAAI consider a city in south - ment. In addition, Mike Hamilton option, perhaps through JAIR. Kamb - ern China for its conference in 2020. directed the Council’s attention to the hampati noted that while there has Access is very convenient form Hong AAAI Publication Ethics and Malprac - been a lot of activity lately in the ethics Kong. Returning to the issue of a Chi - tice Statement, which addresses some area, there is currently no peer- nese chapter, Yang encouraged the similar issues, specifically related to reviewed conference. The Council was Council to better clarify the decision publication ethics. The Council raised generally enthusiastic, suggesting the process for chapter application accept - concerns about some possible contro - inclusion of bioethics, human-con - ance. versial issues, such as weaponized sys - nected systems, and social science. Membership tems research and human research There was one concern raised about subject rights. The goal of the commit - not including this as a track in AAAI, Blai Bonet initiated a discussion of the tee with the proposed statement, and the Council agreed that the publi - Distinguished Speakers Program, which is closely modeled after the cation issue needs to be addressed. which had been launched in 2016 and ACM statement, was to make it specific for which several applications had to AI. The purpose of the statement is Publications been received. AAAI will act as the liai - to publish a fundamental value state - David Leake reported that the current son between interested speakers and ment, outlining acceptable profession - AAAI-17 proceedings is 20 percent larg - groups requesting speakers. He sug - al behavior for all AAAI members and er than that for AAAI-16, and eight gested that AAAI post a list of potential conference attendees, thereby ensur - times the size of the first AAAI-80 pro - speakers, and an online application ing a safe and welcoming environment ceedings. It contains 765 papers, form. One possible model would be that AAAI would cover the cost of the for all. A few specific recommenda - including those for IAAI-17 and EAAI- travel for the speaker, and the host tions were made, including the follow - 17, and will likely be six volumes. The would cover the accommodation cost. ing: (1) change “computing” to “AI” in IJCAI-16 proceedings was five volumes. The program could be extended to the final clause, (2) remove the refer - AAAI continues to produce technical include tutorial speakers. Another sug - ence to voluntary compliance, (3) reports for all AAAI conference work - gestion was to launch a joint program point to the AAAI bylaws, as they shops and symposia, and has added with another group, such as ICAPS or already cover the membership termi - over 3000 pages to the AAAI Digital ACM. Several issues were discussed, nation process, (4) remove the implied Library in the last year. A new version including whether the requesting requirement to “do good” in items of OJS has been installed, and Leake group should be required to guarantee clauses 1 and 9, and (5) refer people to thanked Mike Hamilton for his efforts an audience size or whether the fund - the Publications statement mentioned on this as well as all publications and ing should be extended to speakers earlier. Chernova asked the Council for the transfer of the AAAI server in already scheduled to speak at a meet - recommendations on next steps for recent months. Leake further reported ing. The criteria to approve speakers the committee. The Council noted that the publications committee will and requests need to be developed that a working group of the Strategic be looking at new directions for the more fully, but the goal is to start the Planning Board created a statement press in the coming year, and solicited program as soon as possible. In the (vision, mission, values, goals) about feedback from the Council. Of particu - meantime, the Council voted on and AAAI, which addresses several ethical lar interest was the issue of open sci - approved $10,000 in funds for the Dis - issues and may be of some help in fur - ence and the growing number of insti - tinguished Speakers Program, contin - ther refining the statement. However, tutions that require open access, gent on the clarification of the the Council did caution the committee including US government-funded approval process. not to confuse the goals of the associa - research. AAAI’s technical publications The Council then brainstormed a tion with expectations for member are currently in open access. few ways to perhaps increase member - behavior. After some discussion about Ashok Goel thanked Leake and ship in the Association, including a publishing a statement of values Hamilton for their mentoring has he more streamlined renewal process, a instead of a code of conduct, the has gradually taken over the reins of

110 AI MAGAZINE AAAI News the magazine editorship. His goal is to Lynne Parker of the University of Ten - to try again in 2018 in New Orleans, broaden participation among authors nessee and the National Science Foun - but will require local support. Kamb - in AI Magazine, and to make articles dation on the Creation of the US hampati noted that even if the event more accessible to all readers. He has National Artificial Intelligence Re - does not gel onsite, it is great to have asked authors to reduce formalism, search and Development Strategic the resources available online. Follow - making the articles more accessible to Plan, as well as well as a Federal Fund - ing up on the handout, Wagstaff asked students in cross-disciplinary areas. He ing Agency Information Panel / Meet the Council to submit their feedback plans to introduce additional columns, and Greet with participants from NSF, on priorities to her by email. including ones by past presidents and DARPA, and NASA. On an internation - fellows, and hopes to address AI topics al level, Tom Dietterich noted that the AI Hub Update/Proposal related to history, education, ethics, EU will pass a directive by 2018 requir - Tom Dietterich, who has been devel - the future, and society. He hopes that ing explanations from AI systems that oping AI Hub with Sabine Hauert, gave every issue will have at least one item make decisions. Otherwise, they can - an update on its current status and of interest for every member. He is also not be used in the EU. Smith suggested proposed that AAAI support the proj - planning interactive components of that the committee could be more ect at $20,000 a year for three years. the magazine once a new infrastruc - proactive in addressing current issues. The funding would be contingent on ture has been developed, including Education obtaining a total of $80,000 in support news, ads, social media, and member commitments from other organiza - comments. At the upcoming editorial Kiri Wagstaff distributed a handout tions for at least the first year. They are board meeting, he plans to recruit detailing the establishment and recent also seeking support from organiza - activities of the Education Committee. additional associate editors to help tions such as ICML, NIPS, ICAPS, etc. The current goal of the committee is to expand the magazine, and to commit Prior to this request, AAAI approved a prioritize and select two ideas to imple - to edit a special issue during their 3- one-time grant of $5000 to register the ment during the coming year. Possible year term. He is also planning to domain name, pay hosting fees, copy projects include the following: (1) im- expand the editorial board, and asked the RoboHub software, and customize prove public perception of AI through the Council for nominations of suit - it for AI Hub. As part of the full fund - placement of columns, editorials for able candidates. He also asked the ing model, organizations will have two news venues, AI books, or blogs, or Council for suggestions on topics for representatives on the AI Hub manage - establishing a youtube channel; (2) special issues. Leake thanked Ashok for ment board. The AI Hub director will improve AI student intake by incorpo - all his efforts. report directly to the AAAI Council, rating motivating AI methods/applica - Leake gave a brief report on AI Top - and as AI Topics does, make selected AI tions into CS1 / CS2, in- creasing inter - ics, an effort started many years ago to Magazine articles available in open disciplinary contact, working with access. Dietterich agreed to talk with educate and inspire the broader com - K-12 teachers to create mini-lessons the AI Topics editors to see where col - munity, including researchers, stu - involving AI, organizing HS/university laborative efforts might make sense. dents of all ages, the media, and the student competitions, or creating general public. It currently has 6000 online resources, including an AI Top - Although the Council was not pre - pages, and garners a lot of internation - ics for grades 6-12, and (3) profession - pared to fund the project for three al interest. In addition, the AI Topics al development for the AI community years, a motion was made to fund the team publishes the AI Alert each week, through special conference tracks project for one year, based on commit - which goes to all AAAI members and (especially on ethics), special issues of ments from the necessary other organ - affiliates. Bruce Buchanan and Reid the AI Magazine, contributions of izations. The motion carried and the Smith are anxious to maintain this teacher lessons via NSF Bits and Bytes, funding of $20,000 was approved for service in the future, and welcome education-related videos for the AI this project. feedback from the Council. Video Competition. Blai Bonet sug - Conflict of Interest Statement Government Relations gested having an ex-officio student representative on the Executive Coun - Ted Senator reported that he currently Steve Smith reported on recent activity cil, who could be present for relevant has several drafts of the proposed con - in this area, including an upcoming discussions. Yolanda Gil also reported flict of interest statement, which he Spring Symposium on AI and Social on the AAAI Connections event held will consolidate and circulate to the Good, stemming from the flurry of the previous day. The program did not Council. All members of the Council activity at the end of the Obama get off the ground until December, and will be required to sign the final docu - administration. He also reported that then encountered several logistical ment, as is recommended by the AAAI the OSTP is currently nonexistent, due issues because of the K-12 participants. auditor. to turmoil in the current administra - For 2017, participating researchers The meeting adjourned at 1:30 PM , tion. People are anxious to keep the went to an off-site location to record and Kambhampati convened a 30- strategic plan in place for the future. their presentations, which will be minute executive session for elected He also reported that AAAI-17 will available to schools, reaching 99 coun - members only. have a couple of interesting events tries and 6,000 girls. They also plan a related to government with a talk by spring Facebook event. Gil would like

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