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Winter News from the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence
Join Us for AAAI-20/ IAAI-20/EAAI-20 in New York!
The Thirty-Fourth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-20), the Thirty-Second Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-20), and the Tenth Symposium on Educational Advances in Artificial Intelligence (EAAI-20) will be held February 7-12 at the Hilton New York Midtown Hotel in New York. The conference venue is located in the heart of New York City in Midtown Manhattan, and is within walking distance of New York's premier attractions, such as Times Square, Radio City Music Hall, Fifth Avenue shopping, the Broadway Theatre District, Central Park, and The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), to name only a few. Beyond Manhattan's many iconic landmarks, 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.
Registration Is Open!
AAAI-20 registration information is now available at aaai.org/aaai20, and online registration can be completed at aaaiconf.cvent.com/AAAI-20. The deadline for early registration is December 13, 2019, and late registration must be completed by January 10, 2020 to take advantage of discounted rates. Technical registration includes admittance to all plenary, poster, and technical sessions, as well as social events. Registration for the tutorial and workshop programs is available for an additional fee. Complete tutorial and workshop schedules and information is available at the AAAI-20 website.
Make Your Hotel Reservation Now!
AAAI has reserved a block of rooms at the Hilton New York Midtown Hotel at reduced conference rates. The cut-off date for hotel reservations is January 6, 2020 at 5:00 pm ET, but we encourage you to secure your room early. For more information about the AAAI-20 block of rooms at the Hilton New York Midtown, please see aaai.org/Conferences/ AAAI-20/hotel-and-travel.
Childcare at AAAI-20!
AAAI is pleased to announce that childcare will be offered at AAAI-20, February 7 (after 12:00 pm) - February 12 (until 4:00 pm). Services will be offered onsite at the Hilton New York Midtown Hotel by KiddieCorp. Registration will be available beginning in January directly with KiddieCorp via the AAAI-20 website. The childcare service is complimentary. Parents will be responsible for children's meals. Space is limited.
AAAI Code of Conduct for Events and Services
AAAI is dedicated to providing a respectful and inclusive conference experience for everyone. Respectful behavior is always assumed and expected of community members during all conferences and events. Conference participants and attendees are expected to interact with others in a respectful and courteous manner, regardless of age, race, ethnicity, national origin, ancestry, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender presentation, physical appearance, religious affiliation, creed, marital status, differing abilities, medical conditions, personal characteristics, technology choices, or any other differentiating factors. For more information on the AAAI Code of Conduct, please see aaai.org/Conferences/codeof-conduct.php.
AAI-20 Special Events
The program for the conference promises to be dynamic, including over 1500 technical presentations in oral or poster format, 138 student abstract presentations, 25 demonstrations, 22 tutorials, 23 workshops, and much more. AAAI20 will also include a number of special events and presentations, including the AAAI Presidential Address by Yolanda Gil, the biannual AAAI History Panel, the very popular Oxford-style AI Debate, and a special panel featuring the winners of the 2018 ACM Turing Award on Sunday, February 9 - Yoshua Bengio (University of Montreal and Mila), Geoffrey E. Hinton (Google, The Vector Institute, and University of Toronto), and Yann LeCun (New York University and Facebook). The 2018 Turing Award winners were honored for conceptual and engineering breakthroughs that have made deep neural networks a critical component of computing.
The preliminary invited speaker program includes Susan Athey of Stanford University, speaking at AAAI-20, as well as Ben Shapiro of University of Colorado Boulder, speaking at EAAI-20. Full details about all special events, as well as the invited speaker program, will be available at aaai.org/Conferences/ AAAI-20/invited-speakers.
Sister Conference Track Returns
AAAI is pleased to welcome back its Sister Conference Track, featuring short talks by representatives of sixteen sister conferences and competitions.
Presentations will include summaries of papers first presented at the following conferences: the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), the International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR), the Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI), the International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems) (AAMAS), the European Conference on Machine Learning and Principles and Practice of Knowledge Discovery in Databases (ECML-PKDD), the International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS), the International Conference on the Theory and Applications of Satisfiability Testing (SAT), the Association for Constraint Programming Conference (CP), the IEEE Internaitonal Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV), the Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL), the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE), the International Conference on Inductive Logic Programming (ILP), the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM), the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci, the ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (ACM EC), and the ACM FAT· (fairness, accountability, and transparency in sociotechnical systems) Conference.
Initiative for Diversity and Inclusion
As part of AAAI's recent initiative for diversity and inclusion, aimed at broadening participation by underrepresented groups in the AI field, AAAI-20 will feature several new programs specifically targeted at this goal, including the Fifth Annual Women's Mentoring Breakfast, Promoting Deaf Inclusion and Collaboration in Artificial Intelligence, DivinAI Hackfest: How Diverse are Top Artificial Intelligence Conferences?, Mentoring Students from Underserved Populations, and several more to be announced. For more information, please visit aaai.org/Conferences/AAAI20/aaai-20-diversity-inclusion/.
AI in Practice Returns to AAAI-20
AAAI-20 will feature the second iteration of the AI in Practice program on Wednesday, February 12. The focus of this year's program will be emerging applications of AI in healthcare. The program aims to offer a venue for exchanging ideas among participants from different disciplines, from general computer science, to AI and ethics, to medicine and public health.
The program will begin with opening remarks by AI in Practice cochairs Evgeniy Gabrilovich (Google Health) and Ashish Jha (Harvard School of Public Health), to be immediately followed by the first featured keynote, given by Vivian Lee (Verily Life Sciences). An eminent researcher and healthcare executive, Dr. Vivian S. Lee has served as president, health platforms at Verily Life Sciences, an Alphabet/Google company dedicated to improving health through engaging technology and insightful data analytics. She was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2015, and serves as a Director of the Commonwealth Fund. Her research focuses on quantitative functional MRI for the improved understanding of physiology and disease.
The second featured keynote will be given by Aneesh Chopra (CareJourney). Chopra is the president of CareJourney, an open data intelligence service launched by Hunch Analytics. From 2009-2012, he served as the first U.S. Chief Technology Officer and prior to that, as Virginia's 4th secretary of technology.
Invited speakers at AI in Practice will include Isaac Kohane, Harvard Medical School; Honor Hsin, Kaiser Foundation; Leo Celi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; John Brownstein, Boston Children's Hospital; and Kira Radinsky, Diagnostic Robotics.
AI in Practice for 2020 will also include an invited panel featuring Freddy Abnousi (Google), Greg Corrado (Facebook), Jim Weintstein (Microsoft), and moderator Lisa Simpson. For complete program information, please see aaai.org/Conferences/AAAI-20/ai-inpractice.
AAAI-20 Student Activities
As part of its outreach to students, AAAI-20 will continue several special programs specifically for students, including the Doctoral Consortium, the Student Abstract Program, Lunch with a Fellow, and the Volunteer Program. In addition, other programs are also of interest to students, including the AAAI Undergraduate Consortium (new for 2020), Highlights from the AAAI 2019 Intel International Science Fair Winners, the student reception, Breakfast with Champions, and the AAAI/ACM SIGAI Job Fair.
AAAI Undergraduate Consortium
The First AAAI Undergraduate Consortium (UC) will be held on Friday, February 7 at AAAI-20. Modeled after the Doctoral Consortium, the Undergraduate Consortium will provide a mentoring program for undergraduates attending AAAI and offer undergraduate students an opportunity to enrich their conference experience by (1) presenting and receiving critical feedback about their work in a professional, academic setting; (2) meeting prospective graduate advisors; (3) receiving mentoring about the advantages (and disadvantages) of pursuing graduate studies in AI as well as practical early career advice; (4) expanding their professional network to include both AI experts, current graduate students, and undergraduate peers; and (5) providing advice, tools, and resources for successfully applying to and attending graduate school in an AIrelated research. Participating students will have the opportunity to present their work at one of the AAAI-20 evening poster sessions. For more information about the UC, please see aaai.org/ Conferences/AAAI-20/undergraduateconsortium.
Meet the AAAI 2019 Intel International Science Fair Winners!
AAAI is pleased to welcome to AAAI20 the winners of the AAAI Special Awards at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, held May 12-17, 2019 in Phoenix, Arizona. The outstanding first, second, and third place winners of the AAAI awards have been invited to attend AAAI and to present their work at one of the evening poster sessions. Please take a moment to stop by and congratulate the winners and welcome them to the AAAI community!
First Prize of $1,500 was awarded to Kevin Meng (Plano, Texas, USA) for Looking through Walls with Artificial Intelligence: An Innovative Solution for Real-Time Retrieval of the Human Figure behind Visual Obstruction.
Second Prize of $1,000 was awarded to Pranav Senthilvel and Shreshth Srivastava (Prospect, Kentucky, USA) for The Development of a Holistic System for Broad-Spectrum Crop Disease Diagnosis and Treatment.
Third Prize of $500 was awarded to Anish Singhani (San Ramon, California, USA) for Real-Time Freespace Segmentation Using Deep Learning on Autonomous Robots for Detection of Negative Obstacles.
Student Reception
AAAI will welcome all students to AAAI20 by hosting an evening student reception on Friday, February 7. Although the reception is especially beneficial to new students at the conference, all are welcome! Please join us and make all the newcomers welcome!
Breakfast with Champions: A Women's Mentoring Event
AAAI will hold its sixth women's mentoring event for students and junior women professionals to meet with senior women in artificial intelligence. Breakfast with Champions will be held Monday morning, February 10.
AAAI/ACM SIGAI Job Fair at AAAI-20
The 2020 AAAI/ACM Job Fair is a place for students and professionals looking for internships or jobs to meet with representatives from over 25 companies and academia in an informal meet-and-greet atmosphere. For further information, please contact organizers John Dickerson (University of Maryland, USA) and Michael Albert (University of Virginia), USA at [email protected]. Space is limited.
The 2020 AAAI/ACM Job Fair will be held Tuesday, February 11 at 12:30 - 3:00 pm. The 2.5-hour event will include an opportunity for a short presentation by participating employers as well as informal mingling. The Job Fair is open to all AAAI-20 technical registrants. Interested individuals who are not registered for the main conference may register for the Job Fair only via the online registration form at aaai.org/ Conferences/AAAI-20/registration.
Employers interested in participating should register via a separate online form available at the AAAI-20 AI Job Fair site (aaai.org/Conferences/AAAI20/ai-job-fair). AAAI-20 sponsors and exhibitors are eligible for complimentary or discounted participation, and may select this option when applying to be a sponsor or exhibitor.
Be a AAAI Sponsor or Exhibitor!
Hurry!-January 3, 2020 is the final deadline for notification of intent to participate!
AAAI invites you to participate as a sponsor or exhibitor at AAAI-20. Your participation will give you instant visibility to this diverse group of AI professionals, representing a host of research areas such as search, planning, knowledge representation, reasoning, natural language processing, robotics and perception, multiagent systems, statistical learning, and deep learning, as well as applications in diverse domains such as healthcare, sustainability, transportation, and commerce. In 2020, AAAI will highlight research in the emerging area of artificial intelligence for social impact. Sponsors and exhibitors enjoy a host of benefits, including complimentary technical registrations.
For complete details about all of these programs, please visit aaai.org/ Conferences/AAAI-20/ or write to AAAI at [email protected]. We hope to see you in New York in February!
Third AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society
As AI is becoming more pervasive in our lives, its impact on society is more significant and concerns and issues are being raised regarding aspects such as value alignment, data handling and bias, regulations, and workforce displacement. Only a multidisciplinary and multistakeholder effort can find the best ways to address these concerns, including experts of various disciplines, such as ethics, philosophy, economics, sociology, psychology, law, history, and politics. AAAI and ACM are pleased to present the Second Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society.
The AIES conference will be colocated again with AAAI-20 on February 7-8, 2020 in New York. The program of the conference will include peer-reviewed paper presentations, invited talks, panels, and working sessions.
For more information, please see www.aies-conference.com. Registration will be available via the AAAI-20 registration site at aaaiconf.cvent.com/ AAAI-20. Individuals who would like to attend AIES (or add AIES to their AAAI registration) may register via the normal AAAI registration form.
Join Us for the AAAI 2020 Spring Symposium!
The AAAI Spring Symposium Series is an annual set of meetings run in parallel at a common site. It is designed to bring colleagues together in an intimate forum while at the same time providing a significant gathering point for the AI community. The two and one half day format of the series allows participants to devote considerably more time to feedback and discussion than typical one-day workshops. It is an ideal venue for bringing together new communities in emerging fields.
The symposia are intended to encourage presentation of speculative work and work in progress, as well as completed work. Most symposia provide ample time for discussion, and some feature novel programming, including the use of target problems, open-format panels, working groups, or breakout sessions. All symposia are limited in size, and participants are expected to attend a single symposium.
The Thirty-Second AAAI Spring Symposium Series will be held March 23-25, 2020 at Stanford University, in cooperation with the Stanford Computer Science Department. The eight symposia are as follows:
Applied AI in Healthcare: Safety, Community, and the Environment
Organized by Rajan Puri, Samira Rahimi, and Selma Sabanovic
Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing
Organized by Mark Maybury, Peter Friedland, Jim Hender, John Manferdelli, and Manish Mehta]
AI Welcomes Systems Engineering: Towards the Science of Interdependence for Autonomous Human-Machine Teams
Organized by William Lawless, Ranjeev Mittu, Don Sofge, Thomas Shortell, Tom McDermott, and Brian Jalaian
Challenges and Opportunities for Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning
Organized by Chris Amato, Frans Oliehoek, and Karl Tuyls
Combining Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning with Physical Sciences (AAAI-MLPS)
Organized by Jonghyun Lee, Eric Darve, Peter Kitanidis, Matthew Farthing, and Tyler Hesser
Combining Machine Learning and Knowledge Engineering in Practice (AAAI-MAKE)
Organized by Andreas Martin, Knut Hinkelmann, Frank Van Harmelen, Doug Lenat, Aurona Gerber, and Hans-Georg Fill.
Deep Models and Artificial Intelligence for Defense Applications: Potentials, Theories, Practices, Tools and Risks
Organized by Ying Zhao, Doug Lange, Tony Kendall, and Erik Blasch
Towards Responsible AI in Surveillance, Media, and Security through Licensing
Organized by Julia Haines, Danish Contractor, Daniel McDuff, Brent Hecht, and Christopher Hines
For additional information, and links to the supplementary websites for each symposium, please see www. aaai.org/Symposia/Spring/sss20.php. Registration information will be available by January 6, 2020. The final registration deadline for participation will be February 28, 2020. For more information, please see www.aaai.org/Symposia/ Spring/sss20.php or write to sss20@ aaai.org.
ICWSM-20
The Fourteenth International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM-20) will be held June 8-11, 2020 at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
The International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM) is a forum for researchers from multiple disciplines to come together to share knowledge, discuss ideas, exchange information, and learn about cuttingedge 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, now in its fourteenth year, has become one of the premier venues for computational social science, and previous years of ICWSM have featured papers, posters, and demos that draw upon network science, machine learning, computational linguistics, sociology, communication, and political science. The uniqueness of the venue and the quality of submissions have contributed to a fast growth of the conference, and a competitive acceptance rate around twenty percent for full-length research papers published in the proceedings by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI).
For ICWSM-2020, in addition to the usual program of contributed talks, posters and demos, the main conference will include a selection of keynote talks from prominent scientists and technologists. Building on successes in previous years, ICWSM-2020 will also hold a day of workshops and tutorials in addition to the main conference.
For information about paper submissions, as well as the planned program, please refer to icwsm.org/2020.
AIIDE-20
The artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE) conference is an annual series of conferences showcasing interdisciplinary research on modeling, developing, and evaluating intelligent systems in entertainment. AIIDE provides a meeting place for AI researchers and practitioners to discuss the latest advances and contemporary issues in entertainmentfocused AI. The conference has a longstanding history of featuring research on artificial intelligence in computer games, and continues to grow into entertainment areas beyond games.
The Sixteenth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE-20) will be held at Worcester Polytechnic University in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA, in late October, 2020. For more information contact AAAI at aiide20@ aaai.org.
HCOMP-20
The AAAI Conference on Human Computation and Crowdsourcing (HCOMP) is the premier venue for disseminating the latest research findings on human computation and crowdsourcing. While artificial intelligence (AI) and human-computer interaction (HCI) represent traditional mainstays of the conference, HCOMP believes strongly in inviting, fostering, and promoting broad, interdisciplinary research. The field is particularly unique in the diversity of disciplines it draws upon and contributes to, ranging from humancentered qualitative studies and HCI design, to computer science and artificial intelligence, to economics and the social sciences, all the way to digital humanities, policy, and ethics. The conference promotes 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.
Plans are underway to hold the Eighth AAAI Conference on Human Computation and Crowdsourcing in Amsterdam, The Netherlands in late October 2020. For an update on specific dates, as well as other important deadlines, please visit the HCOMP-20 website (humancomputation.com) or write to [email protected].
Copyright Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Winter 2019