I’m going to make a very quick visit to Ohio, to participate in a panel on “Drones as Threats: Privacy and Property Rights” at the OSU Drones as Disruption conference that is being held in Columbus, OH tomorrow.
Agenda looks really good, I hope to learn stuff. But I’m starting to dislike airports.
Back from a great and helpful conference in Amsterdam. Lots of interesting papers, a chance to reconnect with many European colleagues especially from Amsterdam and Tilburg, and lots of useful comments on the draft paper I presented.
Now I have to deal with jet lag.
And tonight, if I can stay up for it, do I watch the GOP debate, or the first game of the Miami Heat’s potentially interesting season? So far I’m leaning towards the basketball. The first two debates had enough hate and fantasy to hold me for a long while.
One of my few achievements was getting UMiami to join Eduroam, the nifty university consortium that allows visiting academics to log in automatically to the internet supplied by all other member institutions. European universities were early adopters; the US is catching up. Once you get it set up on your devvice, it’s seamless; I’m using it now via the University of Amsterdam.
I’m going to (some of) Amsterdam Privacy Week — the early bits, plus the Amsterdam edition of PLSC where I’ll present a work in progress on how we might structure anonymous transactions so they are of some use in preventing profiling, but not so private that the US government inevitably will choke on them. Whether there is in fact something worthwhile in the intersection of those sets could be debated, but it seems worth thinking about at least.
Unfortunately, I will miss much of the event — I’m journeying back on Tuesday — as there are only so many classes you can reschedule in good conscience.
Please email me at myfirstname.mylastname@gmail.com if you are going to be there and want to meet up at some point. That’s Michael Froomkin if you are wondering what my name is.
Blogging likely be light to non-existent while away. Might tweet from time to time though at @mfroomkin.
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:
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.
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.
Jotwell Blenderlaw
