Call for Chapter Abstracts for the Book Luciano Floridi`s Philosophy of Technology: Critical Reflections

Call for Chapter Abstracts for the Book

Luciano Floridi`s Philosophy of Technology: Critical Reflections


Publisher: Springer (Philosophy of Engineering and Technology Book Series) Book Series Editor in Chief: Vermaas, P. The Volume Editor: Ibo van de Poel

Guest Editor for the volume: Hilmi Demir.

Chapter submissions until June 15, 2010 to hilmi@bilkent.edu.tr

The collected volume focuses on Luciano Floridi`s Philosophy of Technology and will explore both the philosophical and empirical aspects of his theory. Here is a sample of the issues that we intend to cover within the framework of the collected volume.

1. The nature of information
2. Ethics and Information Technology
3. Knowledge and Technology
4. The notion of `being informed` and its formal analysis
5. Floridi`s notion of `Levels of Abstraction`
6. Philosophy of Computing and AI
7. Philosophy of Technology and Education
8. Floridi`s notion of `infosphere`
9. Cognitive Technology and `inforgs`
10. The informational turn as a fourth revolution after the Copernican, the Darwinian and the Freudian revolutions.
11. Online identity and Floridi`s informational structural realism.

Chapters should normally be between 7000 and 10000 words in length, although longer chapters, of up to 15000 words, might also be accepted for publication.


Sincerely,
Hilmi Demir
Guest Editor

Legal Deposit Act

This is a short interview for The Oxford Student on Brittain's Department for Culture, Media and Sport's recent proposal on the implementation of the 2003 Legal Deposit Act as regards websites (http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/consultations/Digital_legal_deposit.pdf).

Tendai Musakwa:
In the proposal, the department suggests deposit libraries such as the Bodleian be legally empowered to archive freely available websites to document Britain's history.
1. What is your view on allowing deposit libraries to archive websites?

Luciano Floridi:
It is an excellent and timely idea. The online and digital nature of most of our data means that we can easily rewrite, lose or erase vast amounts of irreplaceable information. We need to use our technologies at their best in order to cope with their forgetful memories.

Tendai Musakwa:
2. The British Library has expressed dismay at the delay in implementing website deposit regulations since the 2003 act, warning that earlier versions of websites are usually deleted such that the UK has lost millions of pages recording events such as the MPs' expenses scandal, the release of the Lockerbie bomber and the Iraq war because the websites were not archived. In your view, is there an urgent need to implement regulations on e-deposit?

Luciano Floridi:
Absolutely. The Museum of the Moving Image, for example, has a very valuable record of the web-based campaigns for the 2008 Presidential Election in the US (http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/). Without such projects, future generations will have limited access to their historical past, cultural heritage and hence self-understanding.


Tendai Musakwa: 
3. What are the potential implications of implementing the 2003 Legal Deposit Act as regards the archiving of websites on intellectual life and the UK's cultural heritage?

Luciano Floridi:
I'd like to select two in particular. We need to ensure that the archiving is fair, because what will not be archived might disappear forever; and that the accumulation of memories will not be a burden for the future, because, sometimes, forgiving requires a bit of forgetting. We should beware of what we wish to remember, because it might be a way of keeping our wounds forever open.

Barwise Prize

 I have delivered the Barwise Lecture at the APA Meeting on the 29th of December 2009 in NY.

This is the prize.

Two Philosophers of the Information Age

THE FUTURE OF PHILOSOPHY: METAPHILOSOPHICAL DIRECTIONS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY.

A Symposium Marking the 40th Anniversary of the Founding of the Journal Metaphilosophy. FRIDAY 11 DECEMBER, Institute of Philosophy, School of Avanced Studies, London.

Terrell Ward Bynum's lecture: Two Philosophers of the Information Age: Robert Wiener and Luciano Floridi.

New introduction to information and computer ethics

The Cambridge Handbook of Information and Computer Ethics
Edited by Luciano Floridi

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have profoundly changed many aspects of life, including the nature of entertainment, work, communication, education, healthcare, industrial production and business, social relations and conflicts. They have had a radical and widespread impact on our moral lives and hence on contemporary ethical debates. The Cambridge Handbook of Information and Computer Ethics provides an ambitious and authoritative introduction to the field, with discussions of a range of topics including privacy, ownership, freedom of speech, responsibility, technological determinism, the digital divide, cyber warfare, and online pornography. It offers an accessible and thoughtful survey of the transformations brought about by ICTs and their implications for the future of human life and society, for the evaluation of behaviour, and for the evolution of moral values and rights. It will be a valuable book for all who are interested in the ethical aspects of the information society in which we live.

Preface Luciano Floridi

Part I. Introduction and Background
1. Ethics after the information revolution, Luciano Floridi
2. The historical roots of information and computer ethics, Terrell Ward Bynum

Part II. Ethical Approaches
3. Values in technology and disclosive computer ethics, Phil Brey
4. The use of normative theories in computer ethics, Jeroen van den Hoven
5. Information ethics, Luciano Floridi

Part III. Ethical Issues in the Information Society
6. Social issues in computer ethics, Bernd Carsten Stahl
7. Rights and computer ethics, John Sullins
8. Conflict, security and computer ethics, John Arquilla
9. Personal values and computer ethics, Alison Adam
10. Global information and computer ethics, Charles Ess and May Thorseth
11. Computer ethics and applied contexts, John Weckert and Adam Henschke

Part IV. Ethical Issues in Artificial Contexts
12. The ethics of IT artefacts, Vincent Wiegel
13. Artificial life, artificial agents, virtual realities: technologies of autonomous agency, Colin Allen
14. On new technologies, Steve Clarke

Part V. Metaethics
15. The foundationalist debate in computer ethics, Herman Tavani

Epilogue
The ethics of the information society in a globalised world, Luciano Floridi

If you are interested in understanding what information is

Information: A Very Short Introduction
Luciano Floridi
Very Short Introductions
152 pages | 15 black and white line drawings | 174x111mm
978-0-19-955137-8 | Paperback | February 2010
Price: £7.99

• Explores a concept central to modern science and society, from thermodynamics and DNA to our use of the mobile phone and the Internet.
• Considers concepts such as 'Infoglut' (too much information to process) and the emergence of an information society.
• Addresses the meaning and value of information in science, sociology, and philosophy.
• Raises the broader social and ethical issues relating to privacy, accessibility, and ownership of information.

We live an information-soaked existence - information pours into our lives through television, radio, books, and of course, the Internet. Some say we suffer from 'infoglut'. But what is information? The concept of 'information' is a profound one, rooted in mathematics, central to whole branches of science, yet with implications on every aspect of our everyday lives: DNA provides the information to create us; we learn through the information fed to us; we relate to each other through information transfer - gossip, lectures, reading. Information is not only a mathematically powerful concept, but its critical role in society raises wider ethical issues: who owns information? Who controls its dissemination? Who has access to information? Luciano Floridi, a philosopher of information, cuts across many subjects, from a brief look at the mathematical roots of information - its definition and measurement in 'bits'- to its role in genetics (we are information), and its social meaning and value. He ends by considering the ethics of information, including issues of ownership, privacy, and accessibility; copyright and open source.For those unfamiliar with its precise meaning and wide applicability as a philosophical concept, 'information' may seem a bland or mundane topic. Those who have studied some science or philosophy or sociology will already be aware of its centrality and richness. But for all readers, whether from the humanities or sciences, Floridi gives a fascinating and inspirational introduction to this most fundamental of ideas.

Readership: General readers and students of science, sociology/communication, computing, information processing and philosophy.

Introduction

1: The information revolution

2: The language of information

3: Mathematical information

4: Semantic information

5: Physical information
6: Biological information
7: Economic information
8: The ethics of information
Conclusion
References

CFP - Towards a Comprehensive Intelligence Test (TCIT) - Reconsidering the Turing Test for the 21st Century Symposium

Call for Paper

Towards a Comprehensive Intelligence Test (TCIT)

Reconsidering the Turing Test for the 21st Century Symposium

http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~aayesh/TuringTestRevisited/

At AISB2010 Convention

Leicester, UK

29th March – 1st April 2010

2010 marks the 60th anniversary of the publication of Turing’s paper, in which he outlined his test for machine intelligence. Turing suggested that the possibility of genuine machine thought should be replaced by a simple behaviour-based process in which a human interrogator converses blindly with a machine and another human. Although the precise nature of the test has been debated, the standard interpretation is that if, after five minutes interaction, the interrogator cannot reliably tell which respondent is the human and which the machine then the machine can be qualified as a 'thinking machine'. Through the years, this test has become synonymous as 'the benchmark' for Artificial Intelligence in popular culture. However, new advances in cognitive sciences and consciousness studies suggest it may be useful to revisit this test. The aim of this symposium is to reconsider the Turing Test in the light of current advances in Artificial Intelligence, cognitive systems, and other competitions that provide insights into different types of intelligence, with the goal of outlining a new test - or suite of tests - that may more usefully be employed to evaluate 'machine intelligence' at the dawn of the 21st century.

DEADLINES

Submission deadline for all formats: 11 January 2010

Late and by arrangement submissions deadline (e.g. competitions): 20 January 2010

Acceptance notification: 11 February 2010

Camera ready copies: 1 March 2010

Convention: 29 March - 1 April 2010


Submission is through easychair web site:

http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=tcit2010


FORMATS

Full research papers: up to 10 pages

Short Position papers: up to 4 pages

Posters: a single sheet, preferably A1 or A2 size.

System Demonstrations: descriptive A4 sheet and software.

Competition proposal: up to 2 pages, this should go beyond an extended abstract and specify the competition goals and give its operational details.

Competition performance report: up to 2 pages.

Running a competition for demonstration: this is by arrangement only. Please contact the symposium chair (Aladdin Ayesh: aayesh@dmu.ac.uk) to agree on details.



ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

Aladdin Ayesh (De Montfort,Symposium Chair)

Mark Bishop (Goldsmith College, London)

Luciano Floridi (Hertfordshire/Oxford)

Kevin Warwick (Reading)



PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Selmer Bringsjord (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)

Bernd Carsten Stahl (De Montfort)

James Moor (Dartmouth College)

John Preston (Reading)

Ray Tuner (Essex)

Robb Wilcox (NRG)