The deployment of robotic systems has been accelerating in many domains that have a substantial impact on society. For example, robotic systems have been proposed for applications that range from elder care and autonomous driving to nuclear energy production and military technology. However, while our ability to build robotic systems that integrate into our daily lives has expanded over the years, it has outstripped our ability to build robotic systems that can account for the large number of different ethical considerations that may arise during operation. This workshop therefore focuses on building and evaluating ethical robotic systems at every level of the robotics stack while broadening the scope of areas that should be considered by researchers, such as how users can interact with new and existing technology or how legislators can develop actionable standards and regulations.
ERS 2021 aims to bring together researchers from academia and industry to discuss key challenges, learn from real-world case studies, identify potential research avenues, explore recent technical advances, present novel data sets, and survey existing work related to ethical robotic systems. Given this aim, we invite contributions that draw from a range of methods in artificial intelligence and robotics, such as planning, reinforcement learning, machine learning, deep learning, human-robot interaction, safety, explainability, transparency, formal verification, social preferences, and human factors. Most importantly, we welcome researchers from disciplines beyond robotics, including philosophy, psychology, sociology, and law, in order to represent diverse perspectives on building and evaluating ethical robotic systems.
Relevant research topics include but are not limited to:
Contact: ers.workshop@gmail.com
We encourage a range of submission types to facilitate broad participation:
Details: There is no page limit for references and supplementary materials. Submissions should be in PDF and follow the IROS 2021 format guidelines. All accepted papers will be included in an electronic, non-archival proceedings. Note that papers published, accepted, or under review at other conferences may be submitted and presented at the workshop subject to the conference guidelines.
The Center for Human-Compatible AI (CHAI) at UC Berkeley and the Berkeley Existential Risk Initiative (BERI) are generously sponsoring the ERS 2021 Best Paper Award. The best paper will be selected based on a vote by committee. The authors of the best paper will receive a $400 cash prize and a printed certificate at the end of the workshop.
Due to COVID-19, ERS 2021 is required by IROS to be held virtually on gCon in Hall 3 and gather.town from 16:10 to 19:10 CEST on October 1. In order to accomodate this restriction by IROS, ERS 2021 will have three sessions this year.
Invited Speaker Session. Each invited speaker will have two parts:
Lightning Talk Session. Each contributed talk will give a live 2-min lightning talk with a 3-min Q&A on gCon.
Poster Social Session. Each contributed talk will present a live poster on gather.town.