BICA 2021: 2021 Annual International Conference on Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures University of Fukuchiyama (online) Fukuchiyama City, Kyoto, Japan, September 13-19, 2021 |
Conference website | https://bica2021.org |
Submission link | https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=bica2021 |
Abstract registration deadline | September 11, 2021 |
Submission deadline | September 12, 2021 |
BICA 2021 is the 12th Annual International Conference on Brain-Inspired Cognitive Architectures for Artificial Intelligence, which is also the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the BICA Society. Started as a continuation of AAAI Fall Symposia on BICA (2008, 2009), the BICA conference demonstrated a steady growth in popularity over years, with remarkable success in many parts of the world (2010, 2011: Washington, D.C.; 2012: Palermo, Italy; 2013: Kiev, Ukraine; 2014: MIT, Boston, MA; 2015: Lyon, France; 2016: New York, USA; 2017: Moscow, Russia; 2018: Prague, Czech Republic; 2019: Seattle, WA, USA; 2020: Natal, Brazil). This year's BICA conference is held online at two locations: Vienna, Austria, and Fukuchiyama, Kyoto, Japan.
Brain-Inspired Cognitive Architectures (BICA) are computational frameworks for building intelligent agents that are inspired from natural intelligence. Biological intelligent systems, notably the human brain, have many qualities that are often lacking in artificially designed systems including robustness, flexibility and adaptability to environments. At a point in time where visibility into naturally intelligent systems is exploding, thanks to modern brain imaging and recording techniques allowing us to map brain structures and functions, our ability to learn lessons from nature and to build brain-inspired intelligent systems has never been greater. At the same time, the growth in computer science and technology has unleashed enough computational power at sufficiently low prices, that an explosion of intelligent applications from driverless vehicles, to augmented reality, to ubiquitous robots, is now almost certain. The growth in these fields challenges the computational replication of all essential aspects of the human mind (the BICA Challenge), an endeavor which is interdisciplinary in nature and promises to yield bi-directional flow of understanding between all involved disciplines.
Submission Guidelines
All papers must be original and not simultaneously submitted to another journal or conference. The following paper categories are welcome:
- Research Papers describing new exciting advances or preliminary results in experiment, theory, modeling or technology;
- Position Papers describing original visions of an area, a problem or a challenge, supported by a minireview;
- Abstracts for online posting only (without publication), describing a talk, a demo, a discussion panel, or a poster.
All submissions should be made via EasyChair. Papers should be prepared based on the Springers' template for "Studies in Computational Intelligence". For more details, please go to the BICA 2021 site. Remote participation with a publication, or participation without a paper is also welcome. For remote participation, please select the first track.
List of Topics
- Artificial Intelligence
- Cognitive Science
- Models of Learning and Memory
- Neuroscience
- Social, Economic and Educational Sciences
- Intelligent cognitive systems
- Social emotional robots
- Human analogous learning
- Artificial creativity
Artificial Intelligence: Creativity, goal reasoning and autonomy in artifacts. Embodied vs. ambient intelligence. Language capabilities and social competence. Learning by reading, by observation, by reasoning and analogy. Robust and scalable machine learning mechanisms. Self-regulated learning, bootstrapped and meta-learning. The role of emotions in artificial intelligence and their BICA models. Tests and metrics for BICA in the context of the BICA Challenge. Cognitive Science: Perception, reasoning, decision making and action in BICA. Combining natural and artificial approaches to cognition. Comparison of different forms of learning and memory. Theory-of-Mind, episodic and autobiographical memory in cognitive systems. Introspection, metacognitive reasoning and self-awareness in BICA. Models of learning and memory: robustness, flexibility, transferability. Natural language and its role in intelligence, cognition and interaction. Unifying frameworks and constraints for cognitive architectures. Neuroscience: Bridging the gap between artificial and natural information processing. Cognitive and learning mechanisms informed by neuroscience. Neural correlates of cognitive and meta-cognitive processes. Robustness, scalability and adaptability in neuromorphic systems. Neurophysiological underpinnings and implications of deep learning models. Physiological mechanisms of memory formation and (re)consolidation. Representation of contextual and conceptual knowledge in neural systems. Social, Economic and Educational Sciences: Mixed-initiative systems based on inspirations from studies on brain and mind.. Agents possessing human-level social and emotional intelligence. BICA in learning and tutoring technologies and education. BICA models of self and their application to perception and action. Representation, perception, understanding and expression of emotions. Virtual characters, artificial personalities and human-compatibility. Agent-based modeling of intelligent social phenomena. General: Mathematical basis for BICA and fundamental theoretical questions in BICA research. Alternative substrates for implementation of BICA: smart materials, neuromorphic, quantum and biocomputing. Alternative approaches to the development of BICA such as: evolutionary, system-theoretic, educational. Fundamental practical and theoretical questions in BICA research and technology. Cognitive Decathlon and Grand Challenges for BICA as components of the BICA Challenge. Critical mass for a universal human-level learner and a roadmap to the BICA Challenge. Metrics, tests, proximity measures and the roadmap to human-level / human-compatible AI. Leveraging the cloud, world-wide-web, and social-media: possible role for BICA in big data?. Interdisciplinary research opportunities and ideas for new initiatives. International trends in funding of BICA research.
Committees
Program Committee
-
Core Organizing Committee
- Alexei Samsonovich (NRNU MEPhI, Russia) — General Chair
- Taisuke Akimoto (Kyushu Institute of Technology, Japan) — Co-Chair
- Valentin Klimov (NRNU MEPhI, Russia) — PC Chair
- David Kelley (AGI Lab @ Microsoft, USA) — PC Co-Chair
- Junichi Takeno (Mejij University, Japan) — Advisory
- Rosario Sorbello (University of Palermo, Italy) — Secretary
-
Main point of contact: Alexei.Samsonovich@gmail.com
Alexei V. Samsonovich is a Professor at the Cybernetics Department and the head of the BICA Lab at ICIS of the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI in Moscow, Russia. He holds a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Arizona (1997), where he co-developed a continuous-attractor theory of hippocampal spatial maps (with Prof. B.L. McNaughton) and a mental state framework for cognitive modeling (with Prof. L. Nadel). Since 2000 Dr. Samsonovich worked at the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study of George Mason University, where his highest title was Assistant Professor. Since 2005 his research focused on biologically inspired cognitive architectures (BICA). As a team leader, he developed and implemented a number of biologically inspired cognitive architectures, including GMU BICA (listed in the comparative table of implemented cognitive architectures at http://bicasociety.org/cogarch) and eBICA, which integrates semantic maps and moral schemas into one framework. Dr. Samsonovich chaired annual symposia and conferences on BICA since 2008, co-founded and directed the BICA Society since 2010, edited several books and journals, including Elsevier's BICA and CSR. His publications deserved journal cover awards in Learning & Memory, Journal of Neuroscience, Hippocampus, Cortex, and Complexity. He is a recipient of the James S. Albus Medal Award of 2019. Alexei V. Samsonovich is a citizen of the United States of America. E-mail: Alexei.Samsonovich@gmail.com
Taisuke Akimoto is an Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Computer Science and Systems Engineering, Kyushu Institute of Technology, Fukuoka, Japan. He received his Ph.D. from Iwate Prefectural University, Japan, in 2014. His research interests include generative narrative cognition, artificial cognitive system/architecture, and artificial intelligence. He is a member of the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence, Japanese Cognitive Science Society, and AAAI. E-mail: akimoto@ai.kyutech.ac.jp
David J. Kelley is the Senior Software Architect over the Boston Consulting Groups Product Group called “Omnia” and the lead scientist for the AGI Laboratory. Dr. Kelley has been writing code for 35 years coming with a background in Software Engineering and Architecture including high profile projects for Microsoft, Nike, Amazon, Boeing and more as well as having won Microsoft’s MVP award for 8 years straight. Dr. Kelley has been the CTO of several mid-size corporations managing research and development globally as well as software engineering. Prior to becoming CTO David had published more than 16 courses and written for several books on related engineering topics. During last 20 years his focus is on pushing the bounds of technology as a researcher and futurist from full immersive experience focused engineering to creative approaches to emotion-based machine intelligence. David’s focus in Artificial Intelligence has been in Cognitive Architectures and creating systems that actively make decisions or proactive agent architecture culminating in developing the ICOM Cognitive Architecture along with related models and systems for use in designing and building Artificial General Intelligence built primarily on the Microsoft engineering stack. E-mail: david@artificialgeneralintelligenceinc.com
Valentin V. Klimov is an Assistant Professor at NRNU MEPhI, Deputy Director at the Institute of Cyber Intelligence Systems of NRNU MEPhI, Head of the Online Education Center. He received his PhD in Applied Mathematics from NRNU MEPhI in 2008. In 2008 he graduated from the EAI MEPhI with a degree in Economics and Enterprise Management. From 2011 to 2013, he studied at the Skolkovo Open University. Dr. Valentin V. Klimov is co-chairing BICA conferences and schools and co-editing BICA Proceedings since 2016. E-mail: VVKlimov@mephi.ru
Junichi Takeno is a Doctor of Engineering, a Professor at Meiji University, School of Science and Technology (1-1-1, Higashi-mita, Tama-ku, Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture 214-8571), President of Heuristics Science Research Institute (15-4, Komukai-cho, Saiwai-ku, Kawasaki City, Kanagawa prefecture 212-0003). He is a world-recognized expert in Autonomous mobile robots, humanoid robots, robot vision, robot facial expressions, artificial intelligence, artificial consciousness, robot emotions and feelings, robots remote-controlled by stereovision, association and kansei database, robot consciousness, robot mind, robot conscience. His other professional activities include: General Chair of ICAM94, co-organizer of IEEE Robotics & Automation 97, IAS4, Trusty of the RSJ, 1998–2000; BICA, 2010-2020; President of the IFToMM sub-commission for Asia, 2000–2007, Fellow of the RSJ, 2014. Professor Takeno is a recipient of a number of awards, including Centennial Awards of Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME), 1997, Best Paper awards at SCI 2003–2004, CCCT04, IEA/AIE 2005. His work was covered by the Discovery Channel (Sep. and Dec. 2005), Reuters (2007), Associated Press (2008), and RIA (Russian National TV, 2017). URL: www.rs.cs.meiji.ac.jp/en/papers/archive.html
Rosario Sorbello, born on March 6, 1974, is a Professor of Robotics at the University of Palermo, Italy and Co-Director of RoboticsLab. He received Laurea degree and Ph.D. in Computer Science and Robotics in 1998 and 2001. During 2000 He was a visiting PhD student at Georgia Tech Mobile Robot Lab of Prof. Ronald Arkin. From 2008 he started a collaboration with Prof. Hiroshi Ishiguro, Osaka University, in the field of innovative humanoid robot. In 2011 and 2012 he co-organized in Palermo the International Congress of the Italian Association of Artificial Intelligence (AI*IA 2011) and the International Congress Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architecture (BICA 2012) where for the first time in Italy was held the play "Sayonara" between a female humanoid robot and an actress. Prof. Sorbello’s main research interests are in the field of long-term social interaction between man and humanoid robot, in emotional cognitive architectures for the new generation of Japanese humanoid robots (Geminoid and Telenoid) using BCI and VR so that they are able to exhibit emotional and empathic behaviors in interaction with humans, in the application of robotic androids in health care (Autism, Visually Impaired, ALS, Elderly People with Dementia). E-mail: rosario.sorbello@unipa.it
Program Committee Members
Kenji Araki (Hokkaido University, Japan), Joscha Bach (AI Foundation, USA), Paul Baxter (Plymouth University, USA), Paul Benjamin (Pace University, New York, USA), Jordi Bieger (Reykjavik University, Iceland), Perrin Bignoli (Yahoo Labs, USA), Douglas Blank (Bryn Mawr College, USA), Peter Boltuc (University of Illinois at Springfield, USA), Jonathan Bona (University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, USA), Michael Brady (Boston University, USA), Erik Cambria (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore), Suhas Chelian (Fujitsu Laboratories of America, Inc., USA), Antonio Chella (Dipartimento di Ingegneria Informatica, Università di Palermo, Italy), Thomas Collins (ISI, University of Southern California, USA), Christopher Dancy (Penn State University, USA), Haris Dindo (University of Palermo, Italy), Thomas Eskridge (Florida Institute of Technology, USA), Usef Faghihi (Universite de Quebce in Trois-rivier, Canada), Stan Franklin (University of Memphis, USA), Marcello Frixione (University of Genova, Italy), Salvatore Gaglio (University of Palermo, Italy), Olivier Georgeon (Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University, France), John Gero (University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA), Jaime Gomez (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain), Ricardo R. Gudwin (University of Campinas (Unicamp), Brazil), Eva Hudlicka (Psychometrix Associates, USA), Dusan Husek (Institute of Computer Science, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic), Christian Huyck (Middlesex University, UK), Ignazio Infantino (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Italy), Eduardo Izquierdo (Indiana University, USA), Li Jinhai (Kunming University of Science and Technology, China), Kamilla Jóhannsdóttir (Reykjavik University, Iceland), Magnus Johnsson (Lund University, Sweden), Darsana Josyula (Bowie State University, USA), Omid Kavehei (The University of Sydney, Australia), Troy Kelley (U.S. Army Research Laboratory, USA), William Kennedy (George Mason University, USA), Deepak Khosla (HRL Laboratories LLC, USA), Swathi Kiran (Boston University, USA), Muneo Kitajima (Nagaoka University of Technology, Japan), Unmesh Kurup (LG Electronics, USA), Giuseppe La Tona (University of Palermo, Italy), Luis Lamb (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil), Leonardo Lana de Carvalho (Federal University of Jequitinhonha and Mucuri Valleys, Brazil), Othalia Larue (University of Quebec, Canada), Christian Lebiere (Carnegie Mellon University, USA), Jürgen Leitner (Australian Centre of Excellence for Robotic Vision, Australia), Simon Levy (Washington and Lee University, USA), Antonio Lieto (University of Turin, Italy), James Marshall (Sarah Lawrence College, USA), Steve Morphet (Enabling Tech Foundation, USA), Amitabha Mukerjee (Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India), Daniele Nardi (Sapienza University of Rome, Italy), Sergei Nirenburg (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York, USA), David Noelle (University of California Merced, USA), Andrea Omicini (Alma Mater Studiorum–Università di Bologna, Italy), Marek Otahal (Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics, Czech Republic), Aleksandr I. Panov (Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Russia), David Peebles (University of Huddersfield, UK), Giovanni Pilato (ICAR-CNR, Italy), Roberto Pirrone (University of Palermo, Italy), Michal Ptaszynski (Kitami Institute of Technology, Japan), Uma Ramamurthy (Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA), Vladimir Redko (Scientific Research Institute for System Analysis RAS, Russia), James Reggia (University of Maryland, USA), Frank Ritter (The Pennsylvania State University, USA), Brandon Rohrer (Sandia National Laboratories, USA), Christopher Rouff (Near Infinity Corporation, USA), Rafal Rzepka (Hokkaido University, Japan), Ilias Sakellariou (Department of Applied Informatics, University of Macedonia, Greece), Fredrik Sandin (Lulea University of Technology, Sweden), Ricardo Sanz (Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Spain), Michael Schader (Yellow House Associates, USA), Howard Schneider (Sheppard Clinic North, Canada), Michael Schoelles (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA), Valeria Seidita (Dipartimento di Ingegneria - Università degli Studi di Palermo), Ignacio Serrano (Instituto de Automtica Industrial - CSIC, Spain), Javier Snaider (FedEx Institute of Technology, The University of Memphis, USA), Donald Sofge (Naval Research Laboratory, USA), Meehae Song (Simon Fraser University, Canada), John Sowa (Kyndi, Inc., USA), Terry Stewart (University of Waterloo, Canada), Sherin Sugathan (Enview Research & Development Labs, India), Knud Thomsen (Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland), Jan Treur (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands), Rodrigo Ventura (Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal), Pei Wang (Temple University, USA), Mark Waser (Digital Wisdom Institute, USA), Roseli S. Wedemann (Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Özge Nilay Yalçın (University of British Columbia).
Organizing committee
- Alexei Samsonovich (NRNU MEPhI, RF) — General & PC Chair
- Ricardo Gudwin (Unicamp, Brazil) — General & PC Chair
- Alexandre da Silva Simões (Unesp, Brazil) — PC Chair
- Esther Colombini (Unicamp, Brazil) — Local Chair
- David Kelley (AGI Lab @ Microsoft, USA)
- Antonio Chella (University of Palermo, Italy)
- Rosario Sorbello (University of Palermo, Italy)
- Jan Treur (VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
- Paul Robertson (DOLL, Inc., USA)
- Christian Lebiere (Carnegie Mellon University, USA)
- Olivier Georgeon (Catholique University of Lyon, France)
- Junichi Takeno (Mejij University, Japan)
Invited Speakers
-
Antonio Lieto (University of Turin, Italy) - keynote
-
Taisuke Akimoto (Kyushu Institute of Technology, Japan)
-
Agnese Augello (ICAR, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Italy)
-
Kate Jeffery (University College London, UK)
-
David Kelley (AGI Lab @ Microsoft, USA)
-
Jagna Nieuważny (Kitami Institute of Technology, Japan)
-
Paul Robertson (DOLL, Inc., USA)
-
Alexei Samsonovich (NRNU MEPhI, Russia)
-
Hedda Schmidtke (Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg, Germany)
-
Rosario Sorbello (University of Palermo, Italy)
-
Junichi Takeno (Mejij University, Japan)
-
Jan Treur (VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
- Agnese Augello (ICAR CNR, Italy)
- Roger Azevedo (University of Central Florida, USA)
- Peter Boltuc (University of Illinois, USA)
- Antonio Chella (University of Palermo, Italy)
- Olga Chernavskaya (Lebedev Inst., Russia)
- Steve DiPaola (Simon Fraser University, Canada)
- Olivier Georgeon (Claude Bernard Lyon 1 University, France)
- Ricardo Gudwin (University of Campinas, Brazil) - panelist
Publication
The outcome of the BICA Workshop will be summarized, evaluated and documented at the BICA Society Panel during the Workshop. The summary will be reported by the Chair at the main conference IVA 2021. In addition to the informal set of Workshop Proceedings to be distributed to all on-site participants, the following publication venues are used in order to disseminate papers of the BICA Workshop at IVA 2021.
- A special issue of the open-access journal Procedia Computer Science (printed, indexed in Scopus) combines workshop papers together with papers from BICA*AI 2020.
- Extended versions of papers will be published in a special issue of the journal Cognitive Systems Research (a Q1 / Q2 Elsevier journal).
- A volume of the Springer Studies in Computational Intelligence book series will be dedicated to BICA 2021.
- A Special Edition of MDPI Proceedings will include selected papers from the Information in BICA-based Systems event at the 2021 Summit of the International Society for the Study of Information (IS4SI).
- Furthermore, all talks and panels of the BICA Workshop will be videorecorded and made available on YouTube in a dedicated channel.
Accordingly, we invite submission of papers, abstracts for talks, videos and demos, and discussion panel proposals. The submission site will open shortly.Papers should be formatted using the Springer Studies in Computational Intelligence template.
Venue
BICA 2021 is a purely virtual conference, consisting of two parallel events: (1) the BICA Event at IS4SI 2021 and (2) the BICA Workshop at IVA 2021.
Here (1) and (2) are:
(1) Information in Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures (BICA) based Systems at the 2021 Summit of the International Society for the Study of Information, September 12-19, 2021, Vienna, Austria, online (https://summit-2021.is4si.org)
(2) 2021 International Workshop on Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures: BICA Workshop at the 21st ACM International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents, September 14-17, University of Fukuchiyama, Fukuchiyama City, Kyoto, Japan, online (https://sites.google.com/view/iva2021/).
Together (1) and (2) will constitute:
2021 Annual International Conference on Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures, also known as the 12th Annual Meeting of the BICA Society, September 12-19, 2021, Vienna, Austria and Fukuchiyama City, Kyoto, Japan, online (bica2021.bicasociety.org)
Contact
All questions should be emailed to Alexei Samsonovich (alexei.samsonovich@gmail.com).
Sponsors
- BICA Society
- ACM IVA 2021
- AGI Lab
- NRNU MEPhI