GPI & IEG Newsletter

The first issue of the new, joint Newsletter of the GPI (research Group in Philosophy of Information, UH) and IEG (Information Ethics research Group, Oxford) is available online at:

http://philosophyofinformation.net/centre/gpi/newsletter.html

The informational nature of being

What is the ultimate nature of reality?

In an article just published in Synthese, I argue in favour of an informational ontology. With a slogan: "To be is to be information".

Well,, it's a bit more complicated than that, so, if you are curious, you can read the preprint online.

And here is the abstract:

This is the revised version of an invited keynote lecture delivered at the 1st Australian Computing and Philosophy Conference (CAP@AU; the Australian National University in Canberra, 31 October – 2 November, 2003).

The paper is divided into two parts.

The first part defends an informational approach to structural realism. It does so in three steps.

1. First, it is shown that, within the debate about structural realism (SR), epistemic (ESR) and ontic (OSR) structural realism are reconcilable. It follows that a version of OSR is defensible from a structuralist-friendly position.
   
2. Second, it is argued that a version of OSR is also plausible, because not all relata (structured entities) are logically prior to relations (structures).
   
3. Third, it is shown that a version of OSR is also applicable to both sub-observable (unobservable and instrumentally-only observable) and observable entities, by developing its ontology of structural objects in terms of informational objects.

The outcome is informational structural realism, a version of OSR supporting the ontological commitment to a view of the world as the totality of informational objects dynamically interacting with each other.

The paper has been discussed by several colleagues and, in the second half, ten objections that have been moved to the proposal are answered in order to clarify it further.

Training course in biomedical ontology

A two-day intensive training course in biomedical ontology will be held in Buffalo on 12-13 April, 2008 under the auspices of the National Center for Biomedical Ontology.

The course will provide an introductory survey of methods and an overview of current developments and best practices in ontology in the life sciences. No prior knowledge of ontology is presupposed.

Further details are available here: http://ontology.buffalo.edu/08/TrainingCourse/index.htm

PhD POSITION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TWENTE: CAREBOTS AND THE GOOD LIFE

The University of Twente is an entrepreneurial research university, located in Enschede, the Netherlands. Distributed over 5 faculties, the UT offers 20 educational programmes ranging from applied physics and public administration to communication studies and biomedical technology.

Research takes place within the context of institutes and focuses, among other things, on nanotechnology, information and communication technology, biomedical technology, policy studies, human behaviour, and mechanics, processes and control. More than 7,500 students and 2,700 staff members live, work and recreate at the UT, the Netherlands’ only campus university.

The Faculty of Behavioural Sciences offers the following Bachelor programmes: Educational Design, Media and Management (EDMM), Communication Studies (TCW) and Psychology (PSY), the following Master programmes: Educational Science and Technology (EST), Philosophy of Science, Technology and Society (PSTS), Communication Studies (CS), Psychology (PSY) a Research Master and two Masters for Teachers. Most of the faculty’s research is carried out within the Institute for Behavioral Research (IBR), and focuses on the themes Health and Safety, Labor and Organization, Knowledge and Education and Communication and Media. Furthermore, research is carried out within the Biomedical Institute (BMTI) and the Institute for Information and Communication Technology (CTIT).

One of departments of the Faculty is the Department of Philosophy, which specializes in research in philosophy of technology, and includes the Centre for Philosophy of Technology and Engineering Science (CEPTES). The department also participates centrally in the 3TU.Centre for Ethics and Technology.

The Department of Philosophy of the University of Twente is looking for a Ph.D. Student (M/F, fulltime) for the project “Carebots and the good life: An anticipatory ethical analysis of human-robot interaction in (health) care” Tasks This project, funded by the 3TU.Centre for Ethics and Technology (http://www.ethicsandtechnology.eu) of the University of Twente, TU Delft and TU Eindhoven in the Netherlands, aims to anticipate and evaluate the role of robots and robotic systems in future (health) care systems and organizations by developing realistic near-future scenarios and by evaluating these scenarios in terms of their contribution to the good life.

The focus will be on the ethical aspects of human-robot interaction in (health) care contexts. Will carebots enhance the quality of life of patients and the elderly, given that human-human interaction will often be substituted for human-robot interaction?

The project will be embedded in the department of philosophy at the University of Twente and the 3TU.Centre for Ethics and Technology.

Profile
A Master’s degree or equivalent degree in philosophy, preferably with a background in ethics, social philosophy or philosophy of technology (consideration will also be given to candidates with multidisciplinary degrees where philosophy is one of the contributing disciplines). Demonstrable interest in robotics and/or issues in health care (but previous work in this area is not required). Good analytical skills. Good communication skills in English, in writing as well as orally. Good team spirit. Creativity, open-mindedness, and an ability to develop new ideas.

Offer
A four-year full-time Ph.D. position, preferably starting May 1, 2008. The gross salary is € 2.000,- in the first year going up to € 2.558,- in the fourth year (€ 27.456,- and € 35.699,- per annum, respectively, including vacation pay and end-of-year bonus).

Information and application

A full project description can be retrieved from http://www.ceptes.nl/robot. For questions about the project you can contact dr. Mark Coeckelbergh (e-mail: m.j.k.coeckelbergh@utwente.nl).

Your application should contain the following documents: a letter of application which explains your interest in the position, your qualifications for it and some suggestions on how you would want to approach the project; a curriculum vitae which includes the name and e-mail address/telephone number of one of your professors, preferably the supervisor of your master’s thesis; a copy of your master’s thesis; copies of academic publications, if any; an academic transcript that contains a list of subjects taken and grades received (this may be an unofficial version or scanned copy).

Your application can be sent by e-mail (preferred) or by normal post to dr. ir. J.F.C. Verberne (e-mail: pz-gw@gw.utwente.nl), managing director of the Faculty of Behavioural Sciences, University of Twente, PO Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, the Netherlands. Please mention the vacancy number 08/050.

Your application should be in by March 17, 2008. Job interviews will be held on March 26 and/or 27. Women are strongly encouraged to apply.

1st Computer Cooking Contest CCC 2008 @ ECCBR 2008

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

1st Computer Cooking Contest CCC 2008 @ ECCBR 2008

September 1, 2008, Trier (Germany)

www.computercookingcontest.net

Who says that only human beings are able to cook delicious meals? We aim to teach our computers the haute cuisine and therefore we need your creativity and ideas! Come to the European Conference on Case-Based Reasoning (ECCBR'08) in Trier and participate in the Computer Cooking Contest (CCC)!

Write your own software application for the live competition. Show that your program is more creative than the average kitchen user. Let your computer's recipe creations be evaluated by a professional cook and an international jury of scientists!

Rationales

Once upon a time in the past, when we still were students, we wondered whether there could be a software which would relieve us from the task of matching the content of our fridge to a dish.

Given a restricted set of ingredients, the task is to cook something, where something does taste good. Ideally, something moreish.

Once upon a time in the present, when we were not students anymore, we wondered whether there could be a software which would relieve us from the task of explaining what we are doing, e.g. case-based reasoning, to a broader audience. Given the technological state of the art, the task is to demonstrate something, where something solves a problem. Ideally, something moreish.

Glue the two together and you get it: The Computer Cooking Contest!

Moreish means: it tastes like more. This is the rationale behind the contest, too. It will attract new people, e.g. students, to deal with AI technologies such as case-based reasoning, semantic technologies, search and information extraction. Also cooking is fun, in particular when using a computer for the design of the menu. Furthermore, the contest will attract the public. Since everybody knows something about cooking, people will be curious what a computer might do about it. Furthermore, we all have noticed the increasing interest of the public audience in cooking, stipulated by the growing insight that good food is mandatory for health.

Hence, the Computer Cooking Contest offers the opportunity to explain the benefits of our technologies intelligible to all.

Competition

The Computer Cooking Contest is an open competition. Any individual, student, research group and professional is invited to submit software that creates a recipe for a single dish or even a three course menu. The input will be a database of basic recipes from which appropriate recipes must be selected, modified, or even combined. The queries to the system consist of a number of wanted ingredients and other requirements for the dish or menu.

The overall competition is structured into a main compulsory task and two additional challenge tasks.

The Compulsory Task involves answering queries that require the selection and modification of recipe for a single dish. A sample query could be to "cook a main dish with turkey, pistachio, and pasta". An appropriate answer would be to select a recipe for pistachio chicken and to replace chicken by turkey.

The Negation Challenge is to answer queries that involve avoiding certain ingredients, which you don't like or which are not available.

This can be done, for example, by selecting an appropriate recipe or by replacing or removing some ingredients from a recipe. A sample query could be: "I want to have a salad with tomato but I hate garlic and cucumber". An appropriate answer would be to select an italian tomato salad and to omit the garlic.

The Menu Challenge requires the composition of a three-course menu based on the available recipes. For example we might ask: "I do have a filet of beef, carrots, celery, field garlic and cucumber. Potatoes are available, too. For the dessert, we have oranges and mint. A soup would be preferable for the starter." In this case, a Caldo Verde as a starter, filet steak with baked potatoes, and an orange ice cream with mint flavour would be a good solution.

Please note that for most of the queries there is not a single correct or best answer. Usually many different solutions are possible, depending on your creativity or the creativity of your software. We also do not imply any restriction on the technology to be used. Case-based reasoning is one candidate technology, but other approaches are certainly suitable as well.

The only restriction we impose is that the given database of recipes must be used as a starting point. We will not provide a formal query language.

Queries will be described in free text but the software to be developed can use any kind of user interaction (structural/ formula-based, conversation, text-based).

Evaluation Criteria

All systems will be evaluated with respect to scientific/technical quality (technical originality of the approach, usability of the software, maintainability, and scalability) and with respect to the culinary quality of the created recipes (appropriate to the query, tasty, cookable, creative). The evaluation will involve a peer-review of the papers describing the system and an assessment by an international jury of experts including a professional cook. We also intend to give the ECCBR attendees an additional vote.

Competition Procedure and Timeline

Now: Statement of Interest

Everybody interested in participating at the CCC should visit www.computercookingcontest.net and subscribe to the mailing list through which all relevant information will be communicated.

September 1, 2007:

Publication of Contest Conditions and Material A detailed description of the competition rules, an initial database of recipes in XML format, and a first set of queries has been published. With this information, the contest participants can start with the development of their system.

June 2, 2008:

Qualifying Examination

To this deadline, the contest participants must submit:

• an up-to-10-page technical description of the system,

• the URL of the running system (web interface) or the executable software (must run on Windows)

• the system results for the first set of queries.

In a peer review process, the submitted papers and the systems will be evaluated and the best contestants are selected for participation in the final. The finalists may of course continue to improve their systems for the final.

August 1, 2008:

Publication of the Contest Recipes An extended database including additional recipes will be published four weeks prior to the contest.

The extended database must be used for all queries in the competitions' final. The contest participants must update their system to include the new recipes.

September 1, 2008:

Computer Cooking Contest The finalist systems are demonstrated at the Computer Cooking Contest at ECCBR. At least one person per finalist must register for ECCBR, demonstrate the system and give a technical presentation at the CCC workshop. The technical descriptions of the finalist systems will be published in the ECCBR workshop proceedings.

The systems are evaluated according to the initial set of queries and a confidential set of new queries. The new queries are different, but similar in type and difficulty to the first set. The evaluation will be performed by an international jury. Separate prices will be awarded for the compulsory tasks and for the two challenges.

Contact: Please do not hesitate to contact ccc-org2008@unitrier.de in case you have any questions.

Philosophy, Computing and Facebook

Tony Beavers has created an unofficial group on Facebook for any IACAP member who might be signed on to that service. This is intended as a bit of an experiment. Anyone interested in Philosophy and Computing/Information is welcome.

As Tony acknowledges "I am aware that there are both pros and cons concerning the idea. (On the Pro side, for instance, Facebook allows for easy communication and sharing of interests. On the Con side, using Facebook in this way may obscure boundaries between the professional and the private.) Be that as it may, the experiment is open to those who with to participate."

You can find the Facebook group at http://evansville.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8269689537&ref=nf