IEG newsletter

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Welcome to the IEG newsletter
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In this issue:
- Publications
- Forthcoming
- Conferences & Talks
- Others


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Publications
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- P. Allo:
. "Local Information and Adaptive Consequence", Logique & Analyse,
49(196): 461-488.

- P. Allo & L. Floridi:
. "Logic and the Philosophy of Information", Special issue of Logique
& Analyse, 49(196).

- L. Floridi:
. "A look into the future impact of ICT on our lives", The Information
Society. 2007, 23.1, 59-64. An abridged and modified version was
published in TidBITS.

. "Ética de la Información, su Naturaleza y Alcance" Spanish
translation by Roberto Feltrero and Paula Olmos of "Information
Ethics, its Nature and Scope", Isegoría. 2006, 34, 19-46.

. Guest editor (with Julian Savulescu) of a special issue of Ethics
and Information Technology dedicated to "Information Ethics:
Agents, Artifacts and New Cultural Perspectives".

. "Information Technologies and the Tragedy of the Good Will", Ethics
and Information Technology. 2006, 8.4, 253-262.

. "Four Challenges for a Theory of Informational Privacy", Ethics and
Information Technology. 2006, 8.3, 109-119.

. "Por una filosofìa de la Información", Big Bang, 2006.

- K. Mather:
. "Object oriented goodness: A response to Mathiesen's 'What Is
Information Ethics?"', in The Best of ACM SIG Computers and
Society - 2004 to 2006, Vol. 3, No. 3.

- S. Sequoiah-Grayson:
. "Information Flow and Impossible Situations", Logique & Analyse,
49(196): 371-398.

- M. Turilli:
. "Ethical Protocols Design". Ethics and Information Technology, 9(1):
49-62.


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Forthcoming
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- P. Allo:
. "Logical Pluralism and Semantic Information", Journal of
Philosophical Logic.

- L. Floridi:
. "A Defence of Informational Structural Realism", Synthese.

. "Semantic Information: Philosophical Issues and Theories",
Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

. "Computers", invited contribution to New Waves in Applied Ethics,
edited by C. Wolf, J. Ryberg and T. Petersen (Ashgate:
forthcoming).

. "Trends in the Philosophy of Information", invited chapter for
Handbook of Philosophy of Information, a book edited by Pieter
Adriaans and Johan van Benthem in the series Handbooks of the
Philosophy of Science (Elsevier, forthcoming).

. "Data", article for the International Encyclopedia of the Social
Sciences, 2nd edition, editor in chief W. A. Darity (Macmillan).

. Japanese translation of "Information Ethics, its Nature and Scope"
to be published by NTT (Tokyo) in an anthology on information
ethics, edited by Prof. Nishigaki.

- K. Mather:
. "E-waste and the ethical rationale behind environmentally-sound
ICT", ACS Information Age, April/May 2007.


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Conferences & Talks
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- L. Floridi:
. Invited speaker, Philosophy of Science and Technology Division,
Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences,
(Beijing, Fall, 2008).

. Invited speaker, workshop on Computation in Cognitive Science,
University of Cambridge
(King's College, Cambridge, July 7-8, 2008).

. Invited speaker, Information Ethics Roundtable, CUNY
(Hunter College, New York, April/May, 2008).

. Invited speaker, "What is life?", University of Kyoto
(Kyoto, 14-21 October, 2007).

. Synthese Annual Conference "Between Logic and Intuition:
David Lewis and the Future of Formal Methods in Philosophy",
Carlsberg Academy (Copenhagen, October 3- 5 , 2007).

. Invited speaker, Colloquium on Philosophy of Science in Italy,
Center for Philosophy and History of Science,
Boston University (Boston, September 10-11, 2007).

. Invited speaker, Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society,
International Wittgenstein Symposium
(Kirchberg, Austria, August 5-11, 2007).

. Presidential address, North-American Computing and
Philosophy Conference, Loyola University
(Chicago, July 26-28, 2007).

. "Web 2.0 and the Semantic Web: A Philosophical View",
North-American Computing and Philosophy Conference,
Loyola University (Chicago, July 26-28, 2007).

. Invited speaker, James Martin Seminar Series,
Oxford University (Oxford, May 29, 2007).

. Invited speaker, Filosofiska Institutionen,
University of Uppsala (Uppsala, May 25, 2007).

. Invited speaker, Workshop on Moral agency and technical
artefacts, Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study
(Haagse Campus, The Hague, May 10-12, 2007).

. Invited speaker, Birkbeck College Philosophy Society,
University of London (London, 16 May, 2007).

. Invited talk, "Bioinformatica e Diritto",
IFOM (Milan, April 5, 2007).

. Invited talk, Department of Philosophy,
Universita' degli Studi di Genova (Genoa, April 3, 2007).

. Invited talk, "The Digital Image" A Symposium of
the Oxford e-Research Centre, Wolfson College
(Oxford, March 16 , 2007).

. "Distributed morality in multiagent systems", paper accepted for the
Seventh International Computer Ethics Conference (CEPE 2007),
July 12-14 2007 University of San Diego, USA.

- K. Mather:
. "Information ethics: ICT professional responsibility in the
information environment". to be delivered at ETHICOMP 2007,
Meiji University, Tokyo, March 27-29, 2007.

- M. Turilli:
. "Ethical flexibility for artificial agents", paper accepted for the
Seventh International Computer Ethics Conference (CEPE 2007),
July 12-14 2007 University of San Diego, USA.

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Others
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- P. Allo:
. Member of the programme committee of ECAP2007, and track-chair for
the philosophy of information and information technology.

- L. Floridi:
. The Philosophy of Information, book under contract
(Oxford: Oxford University Press).

. Philosophy of Computing and Information: 5 Questions,
edited book under contract (Automatic Press / VIP).

. A Philosophical Introduction to Computer Ethics, edited
book under contract (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

. "The Philosophy of Information, its Nature and Future Developments",
guest editor of the special issue of The Information Society.

. elected fellow of St Cross College, University of Oxford.

. area editor (computing and information), editorial board of
Synthese.

. associate editor (philosophy of information), editorial board
of The Information Society.

- K. Mather:
. Appointed Editor of the journal of the ACM Special Interest Group on
Computers and Society (SIGCAS) following in the footsteps of
Alison Adam.

. 'Visiting Academic' at St. Cross College, Oxford, January to July
2007.

- S. Sequoiah-Grayson:
. Secured funding from the Faculty of Philosophy, University of
Oxford, for the First Workshop on the Philosophy of Information
and Logic, November 2007, University of Oxford.

- M. Sicart,
. Dissertation among the top 10 research findings (actually, #2) in
game research this year, as presented at the Game Developers
Conference in San Francisco, March 5-9
http://www.avantgame.com/top10.htm

IEG - Information Ethics Group
http://web.comlab.ox.ac.uk/oucl/research/areas/ieg/

The Digital Image

The Digital Image, an interdisciplinary symposium from the Oxford e-Research Centre, took place on Friday 16th March.

David Shotton had the brilliant idea to bring together Oxford academics who have interests in or are actively working with digital image data, across all disciplines. We described existing projects and activities, discussed state-of-the-art digital imaging and image processing techniques, talked about common interests concerning the description of images and knowledge extraction from digital image resources. It fell on me to present a philosophical view of digital images today. I talked mainly about avatars in Second Life.

I should say that, as a member of the audience, the meeting was a fantastic success. I personally felt that I learnt more during that symposium than by attending so many boring conferences. The thing is that the speakers made a real effort not only to talk about digital images but also about their own fields in a way that was informative and accessible to non-experts. Fascinating.

The interesting thing was also to discover how many common issues we all face when dealing with digital tools and artefacts. As David wrote:

"The symposium is organized in the belief that academics in the sciences, arts and humanities face common challenges and opportunities in the field of digital imaging, and that by breaking down artificial barriers between academic disciplines we will discover similar interests and forge common research agendas across traditionally separate domains."

Absolutely right.

The list of speakers included:
Professor Martin Kemp, History of Art - Seen | Unseen: visualisation in art and science
Professor Philip Torr, Oxford Brookes - Computer vision for films, games and other media
Professor Irene Tracey, FMRIB Centre - Imaging live patients
Professor Donna Kurtz, Beazley Archive - The artefact and the image in Classical Studies
Professor David Cockayne, Materials - Seeing the nanoworld
Professor Alan Bowman, Classics - Imaging ancient documents
Dr Mark Fricker, Plant Sciences - Visualizing biological molecules
Professor Adrian Thomas, Zoology - Visualizing flight
Professor Dennis Noble, Physiology - Modelling the human heart
Professor Luciano Floridi¸ Philosophy - The image, the virtual and the real
Dr David Shotton, OeRC and Zoology - Image semantics and image sharing

You can now watch some of the presentations online.

"PITTSBURGH — March 26, 2007 — Microsoft Corp. and Carnegie Mellon University today announced the creation of the Microsoft Carnegie Mellon Center for Computational Thinking. The center was made possible through a three-year, $1.5 million grant from Microsoft."

More information here

IACAP Newsletter and Awards

The new issue of the IACAP Newsletter, which contains much information about the Association, relevant CFP, etc. is now available at
http://www.ia-cap.org/newsletter.php

If you work in the area, you may be interested in:
- the Covey Award, and
- the Goldberg Graduate Award
which are available for faculty and graduate students.

ISI Samuel Lazerow Memorial Lecture

The video podcast of my talk at the University of Arizona is now available here. You can watch it while looking at the PowerPoint presentation.

Here is Don Fallis' presentation:

"Information Scholar at Oxford to Lecture at UA

Type nearly any word or phrase into a World Wide Web search engine and you'll be bombarded with

millions of references and links. Even narrow inquiries into specialized medical or legal sources produce a glut of articles in today's information-rich environment. How do you know whether the information you retrieve is relevant?

The question of information relevance and how philosophy informs a theory of information relevancy will be addressed by noted philosopher and Oxford University Professor Luciano Floridi at the annual ISI Samuel Lazerow Memorial Lecture. The lecture is Thursday, Feb. 8, in the Swede Johnson Building, Room 205, located at 1111 N. Cherry Avenue on The University of Arizona campus. A brief reception begins at 5:30 p.m., with the lecture to follow at 6:30 p.m. The public is invited and there is no charge for admission.

Professor Floridi is known internationally for his research in the fields of information ethics, computer ethics and the philosophy of information as well as research into the skeptical tradition. He is widely published in these fields has contributed significantly to their establishment as disciplines of study. Floridi is a Fellow of St Cross College and member of the Faculty of Philosophy and of the OUCL (Computer Science Department), University of Oxford. He also serves as coordinator of the IEG, the interdepartmental research group on the philosophy of information at the University of Oxford.

Other appointments include associate professor of logic and epistemology, dipartimento di scienze filosofiche, Universit� degli Studi di Bari; president, International Association for Computing and Philosophy (IACAP); and director of SWIF- the Italian Web site for philosophy. He is a member of the editorial boards of the journals Ethics and Information Technology, Minds and Machines, International Journal of Technology and Human Interaction, Telematics & Informatics and is area editor (computing and information) for the editorial board of Synthese.

The University of Arizona School of Information Resources and Library Science is one of only a handful of library schools selected nationally to host the prestigious ISI Samuel Lazerow Memorial Lectures. The lecture series is sponsored by Thomson Scientific to honor Samuel Lazerow for his long and distinguished service to the library profession. Thomson Scientific provides integrated information solutions to researchers and librarians, physicians and pharmacists, and other professionals worldwide. Professor Floridi�s visit is also supported with additional funding from The University of Arizona International Visitors Fund.

For more information, contact Don Fallis, UA School of Library and Information Science, 520-621-3565, fax: 520-621-3279 or e-mail fallis@email.arizona.edu"