Author: R.S.Aylett at ITI-Mac Date: 15/11/94 13:13 Priority: Normal TO: r.a.ghanea-hercock at EEE-Staff TO: d.p.barnes at EEE-Staff TO: a.fraser at EEE-Students Subject: 2nd Announcement: Practice and Future of Autonomous Agents ------------------------------- Message Contents ------------------------------- This looks like fun. Thought you might be interested - I'd certainly love to go to it! Ruth _______________________________________________________________________________ Subject: 2nd Announcement: Practice and Future of Autonomous Agents From: almassy@ifi.unizh.ch at JANET Date: 15/11/94 11:29 am Date: Tue, 15 Nov 94 11:29:07 +0100 From: Nikolaus Almassy To: 71021.2755@compuserve.com, 71021.2755@compuserve.com, ALN@ING1.rau.ac.za, Charles@sw19.demon.co.uk, D.Lee@cs.ucl.ac.uk, H.RUWAARD@ELSEVIER.nl, Hong.Xu@mech.kuleuven.ac.be, J.Campbell@cs.ucl.ac.uk, Norbert.Glaser@loria.fr, PAULY@techinfo.rwth-aachen.de, ParkerLE@mars.epm.ornl.gov, Pradeep_Khosla@IUS4.IUS.CS.CMU.EDU, R.S.Aylett@iti.salford.ac.uk, Serge.Stinckwich@univ-savoie.fr, Stephane.Zrehen@di.epfl.ch, anderson@CS.ColoState.EDU, annika@ai.mit.edu, apolymer@halcon.dpi.udec.cl, bazan@fzi.de, beer@alpha.ces.cwru.edu, brutzman@cs.nps.navy.mil, bstilman@gothic.denver.colorado.edu, bussmann@DBresearch-berlin.de, cordes@fzi.de, cremer@grant.cs.uiowa.edu, cris@pscs2.irmkant.rm.cnr.it, digney@dretor.dciem.dnd.ca, djzhu@robots.com, domingo@dtic.ua.es, freksa@informatik.uni-hamburg.de, gimuell@coli.uni-bielefeld.de, gkk@forwiss.uni-erlangen.de, hcoelho@eniac.inesc.pt, honavar@iastate.edu, idias@maggoo.inescn.pt, jkr@IUS5.IUS.CS.CMU.EDU, joanna@ai.mit.edu, laird@owl.eecs.umich.edu, luca@idsia.ch, maja@sics.se, maki@roboken.is.tsukuba.ac.jp, mdorigo@ulb.ac.be, mmanela@gsc.ele.puc-rio.br, monty@mensa.usc.edu, mwtilden@aerie.lanl.gov, nicoud@di.epfl.ch, nwanahs@cs.keele.ac.uk, patel@elet.polimi.it, popx@vax.oxford.ac.uk, rik@cs.ucsd.edu, scarab@edinburgh.ac.uk, terry@santafe.edu Subject: 2nd Announcement: Practice and Future of Autonomous Agents 2nd announcement Practice and Future of Autonomous Agents: ASI-AA-95 23 September - 1 October 1995 Centro Stefano Franscini Monte Verit'a, Ticino, Switzerland (Follow-up meeting of the NATO Advanced Study Institute "The Biology and Technology of Intelligent Autonomous Agents", which took place Spring 1993 in Trento, Italy). Sponsored by: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology; Computer Science Department, University of Zurich; SGAICO (Swiss Group for Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science); Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MIT; Applied AI Systems, Ottawa, Canada; Nippon Signal, Japan; Uchidate, Japan. Goal of the Advanced Study Institute "Practice and Future of Autonomous Agents" The goal of the Advanced Study Institute (ASI) is to bring together the world's leading experts in the field of autonomous agents (AA) for an extended period of time in order to bring the existing research community closer together and to extend it to younger researchers. As a result we expect a state-of-the-art assessment of the field, including a research agenda for the near future. We hope that many joint research endeavors will emerge from the close collaboration in the workshops. Current Situation: Autonomous Agents Research in 1995 Because technical skills about robot building are now widely available, promoting these skills at an ASI is no longer the primary objective. However, from a conceptual point of view there are still many fundamental issues in AA design that we do not yet sufficiently understand. Moreover, there is less need to provide complete coverage of all aspects of the field since by now they are well-known in the research community. For this reason the meeting will be focused on a number of core aspects of real world autonomous agents. When the study institute will take place, roughly 2 1/2 years will have passed since the one in Trento took place. Therefore, it is important to evaluate what has been achieved in the meantime. Main topics of the Advanced Study Institute The field of autonomous agents has significantly matured during the last few years. We are beyond the stage where robots are designed mainly based on intuition. It is therefore a good time to make an assessment of the current state of the theory of autonomous agents. Theory: What are the recent developments in the theory of autonomous agents? Design: How can autonomous agents be designed which show sophisticated kinds of behavior? Performance measures: How can the performance of the agents be quantified? Topic areas: The Cog project; behavioral economics approach; evolutionary approaches; "complete autonomous systems"; self-organization, learning, and grounding; dynamical systems; collective behavior; industrial session. Confirmed speakers (list to be completed): Randy Beer, Case Western Reserve University, US; Ren'e te Boekhorst, University of Zurich, CH; Rodney Brooks, MIT, US; Dave Cliff, University of Sussex, UK; Daniel Dennett, Turfts University, USA; Rodney Douglas, Oxford University, UK; Philippe Gaussier, ENSEA ETIS, F; Inman Harvey, University of Sussex, UK; Charlotte Hemelrijk, University of Zurich, CH; Phil Husbands, University of Sussex, UK; Maja Mataric, MIT, US (Brandeis University, US); David McFarland, Oxford University, UK; Gregor Sch"oner, Marseille, F; Tim Smithers, University of the Basque Country, SP; Luc Steels, Free University of Brussels, B; Takashi Gomi, Ottawa, Canada. Workshop organizers (list to be completed): Rodney Brooks, Jean-Daniel Nicoud, Marinus Maris, Lynn-Andreas Stein, Luc Steels, Tim Smithers, Christian Scheier, Matthew Marjanovic, Ren'e Schaad, Daniel Meier Francesco Mondada, Dimitrios Lambrinos, and others. Format: The ASI consists of the following parts: lectures, workshops, background lectures, poster/demo session, special robot event, panel discussions. Lectures. The lectures will provide a state-of-the-art overview of the field including the currently hottest research topics. They have a tutorial and a research aspect and should be attended by everyone. Workshops. The afternoons and some evenings are reserved for workshops. They are conducted in parallel and will consist of concrete case studies with active contributions of all the participants. This can also include presentations. The case studies will include all three aspects of AA, namely theory, design, and performance evaluation and will address questions like: How could the designs of particular agents be improved? How would the agents look like if viewed from a different design perspective? etc. Because the participants already have experience in the field these workshops will be a main forum for exchanging ideas. A list of the workshops will be announced early next year. Background lectures. To embed the topics of the workshop into a larger framework a number of background lectures will be held in the evenings. Poster/Demo Sessions. The poster and demonstration sessions will give all participants the opportunity to present their own work. This is also a forum to facilitate communication during the ASI. Panel discussions. Panel discussions will be organized to work out the strengths, weaknesses, points of agreement and disagreement of the various approaches. Special event. A special event will be organized which should capture the "spirit" of the ASI. Because the various workshop groups will have their own robots to work with, the goal is having some or all of them work together on a common task (heterogeneous collective robots). This could not only be a lot of fun, but is also of great theoretical interest. More details on this special event will be announced later. Application Procedure Deadline for applications: April 13, 1995 Notification of acceptance: May 15, 1995 The application should include: 1. Statement of contribution. A two-page description of the contribution participants plan to make in terms of demos, contribution to workshops, etc. 2. Poster/Demo. Each participant is expected to contribute a poster presentation. Demonstrations are also of great interest. An abstract should be submitted with the application. 3. Background information. A short description of the research background (CV) should be submitted with the application. 4. Robots and simulations. Participants are encouraged to bring along their own robots and/or simulation environments. It would be great to have a large variety of different types of robots for the special event. They should all think about the special event and prepare their own robots in a way that will make success on a common task/game more likely. Please state if you can bring a robot (and if yes, what kind). This is not a condition for participation. Fees Registration: academic CHF 400.00, industrial CHF 600.00 Room and board: academic CHF 800.00, industrial CHF 1400.00 Note: This includes 8 nights at the hotel, 3 meals a day, and coffee during breaks. The calculation of the costs for room and board are based on the assumption that the participants reside in the conference hotel (double rooms with a superb view of the Lago Maggiore and the Swiss and Italian mountains). If you prefer a single room, there are many local hotels available in Ascona, a nearby village which is a very popular tourist resort. Organization Director: Rolf Pfeifer, University of Zurich, Switzerland Program Committee: Rodney Brooks, MIT, Cambridge, Mass., USA Jean-Daniel Nicoud, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland Tim Smithers, University of the Basque Country, San Sebastian, Spain Luc Steels, Free University of Brussels, Belgium (organizer of the previous ASI in Trento) Takashi Gomi, Applied AI Systems, Ottawa, Canada Local organization: Autonomous Agents Research Group, AI Lab, Department of Computer Science, University of Zurich, Switzerland Further information: Rolf Pfeifer AI Lab, Computer Science Department University of Zurich E-mail: pfeifer@ifi.unizh.ch Winterthurerstrasse 190 Fax: + 41 - 1 - 363 00 35 CH-8057 Zurich, Switzerland Phone: + 41 - 1 - 257 43 20/31 WWW information: Consult the following WWW page at URL: http://www.ifi.unizh.ch/asi-aa.html It will always contain the most recent program, additional information about the workshops, travel information, etc. See also ftp://ftp.ifi.unizh.ch/pub/monteverita/ASI-AA-95.txt -- Nikolaus Almassy, Department of Computer Science, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zurich Tel: +41 1 257 43 47, Fax: +41 1 363 00 35, almassy@ifi.unizh.ch http://www.ifi.unizh.ch/groups/ailab/people/almassy.html