We’ve got an absolutely spectacular program lined up for We Robot 2016. It’s a little crowded, but that’s because we got so many great submissions, many of which we still had to turn away. Register now for this action-packed event: April 1 & 2 for the main program, plus special workshops on March 31.

Thursday, March 31

Workshops

9:00am Check-in & breakfast

9:15am Welcome

9:30am Juris Machina: Legal Aspects of Robotics

Organizer: Woody Hartzog, Cumberland School of Law at Samford University

11:00am Break

11:15am Electronic Love, Trust, & Abuse: Social Aspects of Robotics

Organizer: Kate Darling, Research Specialist at MIT Media Lab. Fellow at the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Affiliate at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies

12:45pm Lunch

2:00pm “The Robot Revolution has been Rescheduled (until we can debug the sensors)”: Technical Aspects of Robotics

Organizer: William D. Smart, Mechanical Engineering, Oregon State University

3:30pm Break

3:45pm Funding the Future: Financial Aspects of Robotics

Organizer: Dan Siciliano, Rock Center for Corporate Governance, Stanford Law School

5:15pm Wrap up

Friday, April 1st

8:00am

Check-in and Breakfast

8:30am

Introductions

Welcome Remarks: Patricia White, University of Miami School of Law
Introductory Remarks and Introduction of Sponsors: A. Michael Froomkin, University of Miami School of Law, Program Chair

8:45am

Moral Crumple Zones: Cautionary Tales in Human Robot Interaction
Madeleine Elish, The Intelligence & Autonomy Initiative, Data & Society
Discussant: Rebecca Crootof, The Information Society Project, Yale Law School

10:00am Break

10:15am

Privacy-Sensitive Robotics: Initial Survey and Future Directions
Matthew Rueben, Personal Robotics, Oregon State University
Discussant: Ashkan Soltani, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

11:30am Break

11:45am

How to Engage the Public on the Ethics and Governance of Lethal Autonomous Weapons
Jason Millar, Philosophy, Queen’s University
Discussant: Peter Asaro, School of Media Studies, The New School for Public Engagement, Stanford Law School, International Committee for Robot Arms Control

12:30pm Lunch

1:30pm

Demonstration: Legal and Ethical Implications for Robots in our Life
Olivier Guihelm, Aldebaran, SoftBank Robotics

3:45pm Break

3:00pm

Hot Topic: Autonomous Vehicles

Autonomous Vehicles, Predictability, and Law
Harry Surden, University of Colorado Law School
Connect Cars – Recent Legal developments
Françoise Gilbert, The IT Law Group
Discussant: Dan Siciliano, Rock Center for Corporate Governance, Stanford Law School

4:30pm

Robots Again: Thoughts On the Origins and Direction of Robotics Law
Ryan Calo, University of Washington School of Law
Discussant: Chris Yoo, Communication, and Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania Law School

5:45pm

Poster Session & Reception

7:00pm Birds of a Feather Sessions@ Local restaurants

Saturday, April 2nd

8:00am

Registration and Breakfast

8:30am

Privacy and Healthcare Robots – An ANT analysis
Aurelia Tamo, The Chair for Information and Communication Law and Visiting Researcher, The Institute for Pervasive Computing, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
Christoph Lutz, Institute for Media and Communications Management, University of St. Gallen
Discussant: Matt Beane, MIT Sloan School of Management

9:45am Break

10:00am

Institutional Options for Robot Governance
Dr. Aaron Mannes, Apex Data Analytics Engine, HSARPA Department of Homeland Security
Discussant: Harry Surden, University of Colorado Law School

11:15am Break

11:30am

Will #BlackLivesMatter to RoboCop?
Peter Asaro, School of Media Studies, The New School for Public Engagement, Stanford Law School, International Committee for Robot Arms Control
Discussant: Mary Anne Franks, University of Miami School of Law

12:15pm

Special Event: Policy, Law, and Robotics in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Raj Madhavan, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Institute for Systems Research & Maryland Robotics Center at the University of Maryland

12:30pm Lunch

1:30pm

Demonstration: Openrov And Openrov Trident: Democratizing Exploration, Conservation, And Marine Science Through Low-Cost Open-Source Underwater Robots
Andrew Thaler, OpenROV
David Land, OpenROV

3:00pm Break

3:15pm

Siriously? Free Speech Rights for Artificial Intelligence
Helen Norton, University of Colorado School of Law
Toni Massaro, University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law
Discussant: Margot E. Kaminski, Ohio State University

4:15pm Break

4:30pm

What do We Really Know About Robots and the Law?
William D. Smart, Mechanical Engineering, Oregon State University
Discussant: Ian Kerr, University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law, Faculty of Medicine, and Department of Philosophy.

5:15pm

Final Remarks: A. Michael Froomkin, University of Miami School of Law

Today’s Drone Law Today guest is … me.

Professor Froomkin Talks Drone Law

Hello, Drone Law Nation! In this episode, we speak to Professor Michael Froomkin of the University of Miami School of Law. Professor Froomkin is a leading scholar on “drone law” and robotics. He is also the founder and chair of the We Robot academic conference.

We Robot will be hosted by Miami Law in April, 2016. The call for papers is out! Head over to the We Robot site for attendance information and for more on how to apply to be a speaker or presenter.

Listen in to hear Professor Froomkin’s take on federal and state drone law, self-defense against robots and drones, federal preemption, and a whole lot more.

You can hear the podcast in iTunes or Stitcher.

Update: Thanks to Steve Hogan, the host of Drone Law Today, here are links to a direct download mp3 and to the Libsyn site with the show notes and embedded player for those of us on Android and PC without iTunes or Sticher.

We invite submissions for We Robot 2016 to be held in Coral Gables, Florida on April 1-2, 2016 at the University of Miami School of Law. We Robot–the premier US conference on law and policy relating to Robotics that began at the University of Miami School of Law in 2012, and has since been held at Stanford and University of Washington–returns to Miami Law April 1st-2nd in 2016. Attendees include lawyers, engineers, philosophers, robot builders, ethicists, and regulators who are on the front lines of robot theory, design, or development. The main conference will be preceded by a day of special workshops (see below). The conference web site is http://robots.law.miami.edu/2016.

We Robot 2016 seeks contributions by academics, practitioners, and others in the form of scholarly papers or demonstrations of technology or other projects. We Robot fosters conversations between the people designing, building, deploying and using robots, and the people who design or influence the legal and social structures in which robots will operate. We particularly encourage contributions resulting from interdisciplinary collaborations, such as those between legal, ethical, economics, or policy scholars and roboticists.

This conference will build on the growing body of scholarship that explores the increasing sophistication and decision-making capabilities of robots, in collaboration with humans and autonomously, and the increasingly widespread deployment of robots everywhere from the home, to hospitals, to public spaces, to the battlefield. All of this disrupts existing legal regimes or requires rethinking of various policy issues. This year the program committee is especially interested in papers that discuss issues relating to the deployment of robots in positions that put them in direct contact with people, but as always we remain open to cutting-edge works on any topics fitting within our larger mission. Surprise us. Educate us. We’re listening.

This year’s conference will involve several types of presentations and events. We Robot is organized as a primarily single-track event. Thus, although each type of presentation has its own “track” for submission and evaluation, the actual conference will consist of a mix of each of the following sequentially rather than simultaneously:

1. Scholarly Papers. Topics of interest for the scholarly paper portion of the conference include but are not limited to:

• The impact of robots on the jobs, the economy, and the workforce.
• Comparative perspectives on the regulation of robotic technologies.
• Assessment of what institutional configurations, if any, would best serve to integrate robotics into society responsibly.
• Effects of employment of autonomous weapons in the military or law enforcement contexts.
• Regulatory issues raised by the deployment of robotics, including in medicine, in the air (drones), and on the roads (autonomous cars).
• The impact of human enhancement via robot components, and the need for policy, legal and regulatory structures that address these developing technologies and resulting ethical and social issues.
• The impact of artificial intelligence on civil liberties, including sexuality, equal protection, privacy, suffrage, and procreation. Standardization issues, especially as they relate to issues arising from related disciplines such as ethics, psychology, or law.

These are only examples of relevant topics. We are very interested in papers on all topics driven by actual or probable robot deployments. The purpose of this conference is to drive a research agenda relating to the deployment of robots in society, to inform policy-makers of the issues, and to help design legal rules that will maximize opportunities and minimize risks arising from the increased deployment of robots in society.

How to Submit Your Proposal for a paper. Please send a 1-3 page abstract outlining your proposed paper, and a C.V. of the author(s) via the conferencing system at https://cmt.research.microsoft.com/ROBOT2016/. Please do NOT put any author identifying information on the proposal itself, as we have moved to a system of anonymous reviews this year. Please be sure to choose the “paper” track for your upload. Submissions open October 1 and are due by November 1, 2015.

2. Discussants. We also invite expressions of interest from potential discussants. At We Robot, authors do not present their own papers. Every paper accepted will be assigned a discussant whose job it will be to present and comment. These presentations are very brief (no more than 10 minutes) but they are a critical part of the conference. Authors will then respond briefly (no more than 5 minutes). The rest of the session will consist of a group discussion about the paper moderated by the discussant.

How to indicate your willingness to be a discussant. Please send a short note telling us why you are interested and your C.V. via the conferencing system at https://cmt.research.microsoft.com/ROBOT2016/. Please be sure to choose the “discussant” track for your upload. Submissions open October 1 and are due by November 1, 2015.

3. Demonstrations. Unlike scholarly papers, proposals for demonstrations may be purely descriptive and designer/builders will be asked to present their work themselves. We’d like to hear about your latest innovations, what’s on the drawing board for the next generations of robots as well, or legal and policy issues you have encountered in the design or deploy process. Bring your robot if you can!

How to pitch a demo. Please send description of what you have or are doing, with links to any relevant photos or audio visual information, as well as your C.V., via the We Robot 2016 online conferencing system at https://cmt.research.microsoft.com/ROBOT2016/. Please be sure to choose the “Demo” track for your upload. Please include a brief description of what facilities and resources your demonstration might require (e.g., power, internet connection, space). Submissions open October 1 and are due by November 1, 2015.

4. Poster Session. We Robot will have our first-ever poster session this year in order to accommodate late-breaking and cutting edge projects. This session is ideal for researchers to get feedback on a work in progress. At least one of the authors of each accepted poster should plan to be present at the poster during the entire poster session on the afternoon of April 1, 2016 and for a “lightning round” of one-minute presentations during the main session. We believe this Late Breaking Results Poster Session will be a great addition to We Robot and we strongly encourage you to submit your interesting new work to this session.

How to propose a poster session. Please send an up to 400 word description of what you have or are doing, with links to any relevant photos or audio visual information, as well as your C.V. via the conferencing system at https://cmt.research.microsoft.com/ROBOT2016/. Please be sure to choose the “Posters” track for your upload. Submissions open January 15, 2016 and are due by March 8, 2016. We’ll accept poster proposals on a rolling basis. Remember, at least one author of an accepted poster must register at the conference to submit the final version.

5. Special Workshop Sessions. On March 31, We Robot will host four workshops designed by experts to help people from other disciplines get up to speed in their specialty. We hope these workshops will be attended by people who want to learn about the topics, and by people willing to share their expertise with both experts and neophytes.

• Juris Machina: Legal Aspects of Robotics, organized by Woody Hartzog
• Electronic Love, Trust, & Abuse: Social Aspects of Robotics, organized by Kate Darling
• “The Robot Revolution has been Rescheduled (until we can debug the sensors)”: Technical Aspects of Robotics, organized by Bill Smart
• Funding the Future: Financial Aspects of Robotics, organized by Dan Siciliano

How to participate in a workshop. All that is required is to sign up when registration opens October 1, 2015, and before it closes in late March 2016. The sessions will be held consecutively, so you can attend one or all.

Deadlines

As noted above, proposals for papers, discussants, and demos will be accepted at https://cmt.research.microsoft.com/ROBOT2016/ starting October 1, 2015 and are due by November 1, 2015. See http://robots.law.miami.edu/2016 for further information. We anticipate having responses by December 4, 2015. Full papers will due by March 1, 2016. Authors retain full copyright but they grant us permission to post the paper on line at the conference web site and to distribute copies.

Proposals for the poster session open January 15, 2016 and are due by March 8, 2016.

Registration for We Robot 2016 will open October 1, 2015. Look for the early bird registration rate.

Funding for Participants

We anticipate paying reasonable round-trip domestic coach airfare and providing up to two nights hotel accommodation for one presenter per paper and demo, and also for discussants. For speakers based outside North America we will provide up to $750 towards the cost of your international airfare, plus we will provide two nights hotel accommodation. We are seeking funding sources to contribute to the expenses of poster session presenters, and to provide scholarships for graduate students, so please watch our web page for more information.

Printable .pdf version of We Robot 2016 Call for Papers