Computer Ethics, Philosophical Enquiry 2014: In collaboration with Ethicomp. June 22-27. This joint event will be held in Les Cordeliers, in the Quertier Latin. CERNA will be the host.
News:
Call for INSEIT Board Members, 2014-2016 term. The INSEIT Executive Board oversees INSEIT activities, provides guidance on conference and outreach actitivies, and serves as advisory to the INSEIT President. Please submit self-nominations or nominations (with prior consent) to Elizabeth Buchanan by 15 October.
Following a 10-year period of formal and informal collaboration between several researchers, the establishment of the Society for the Philosophy of Information (SPI, [1]) inaugurates the next phase in the development of the philosophy of information as an independent and self-sustained philosophical field.
The Society was founded during the fourth workshop on the philosophy of information [2] held at the University of Hertfordshire in May 2012, and is now ready to open its membership to anyone interested in the philosophy of information while promoting its scientific and educational activities.
Prior collaborations, including part of the work done at the Oxford-based IEG research-group [3], several editorial projects [4-8], and a highly successful workshop-series [9], will find a new home in this society. In addition to this legacy, several new activities will be launched and led by some of the current members of the society [10].
Concretely, the SPI:
- brings together scholars in the area harnessing the multidisciplinary
and international nature of the Philosophy of Information;
- organises workshops, seminars, conferences and other similar
activities to explore the philosophical issues concerning the concept
of information and its cognate notions;
- publishes teaching material for undergraduate and graduate courses on
the Philosophy of Information;
- maintains a state-of-the-art collection of bibliographic resources;
fosters editorial projects and funding proposals.
In this way, the SPI offers learning and research instruments to undergraduate and graduate students, while promoting the academic network and activities of junior and senior academics whose work focuses on the Philosophy of Information.
The website of the SPI (http://socphilinfo.org) is the main centre of activity where we present the aim and focus of the philosophy of information, the mission of its society, and, most importantly, provide information about the current and soon to be launched activities of the SPI. The current activities include:
- a regularly updated PI-related news feed;
- an overview of previous workshops in the philosophy of information,
and an announcement of the fifth workshop;
- a brand new textbook [11] on the philosophy of information that forms
the cornerstone of our teaching resources;
While the soon to be launched activities include:
- a sustained presence of SPI-sponsored sessions at international
conferences;
- a repository of teaching resources, including an overview of courses
in the philosophy of information that are currently taught;
- bibliographic resources on the philosophy of information, including
an annotated bibliography;
- an overview of the many edited volumes and monographs on the
philosophy of information that were published during the last ten
years;
- book-reviews and book-symposia on notable publications that fit
within or are relevant to the philosophy of information.
Interested researchers and students are encouraged to support this enterprise by becoming a member and by taking part in the activities of the society.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Luciano Floridi, 2012-2013 Weizenbaum Award Recipient:
It is with great honor that INSEIT announces the 2012-2013 Weizenbaum Award Winner: Dr. Luciano Floridi. We had three amazing candidates this year, and the committee was hard pressed to determine the recipient.
We are proud that Dr. Floridi continues his work in the field of information and computer ethics and contributes above and beyond to the profession. The board and membership of INSEIT is proud to share in this well-deserved celebration with him.
We share with you portions from his nomination letter:
"Since 2009, Luciano has served as UNESCO Chair in Information and Computer Ethics. Since 2007, he has been Professor of Philosophy, Research Chair in Philosophy of Information, Department of Philosophy, University of Hertfordshire. He is also Distinguished Research Fellow, Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, Fellow by special election, St Cross College, Oxford, Research Associate and Fellow in Information Policy, Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford, and a senior member of the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford.
Since 2010, Luciano has served at the Editor –in-Chief of Philosophy and Technology (Springer) and is a member of the editorial boards of Ethics and Information Technology (Springer), Etica e Politica (Department of Philosophy, University of Trieste), International Journal of Technology and Human Interaction (Springer), Minds and Machines (Springer), Synthese (subject editor – philosophy of computing and information) (Springer), Telematics & Informatics (Elsevier), The Information Society (associate editor - philosophy of information). Columnist for The Philosopher’s Magazine.
In 2012 Luciano was named Chairman of the expert group, organised by the DG INFSO of European Commission, on the impact of information and communication technologies on the digital transformations occurring in the European society. He has also been a Member of the Ethics Strategic Panel of the British Computer Society.
In the past, Luciano was elected President of the International Association of Computing And Philosophy (IACAP, 2006-2010), member of the Executive Board of the International Society for Ethics and Information Technology (INSEIT, 2006-2010), Vice-President of IACAP (2003-2006), member of the American Philosophical Association Committee on Philosophy and Computers (PAC, 2000-2004), Vice-chairman of Interacta, the Italian Association for Interactive Communication (1996-1997). Founder and Director of the Italian Web Site for Philosophy (SWIF, 1995-2008).
His articles are too numerous to mention. He has been an invited speaker and given keynote addresses at all the major ethics conferences and is booked well into 2013. I could go on and on, but all of us who have worked in this field know his work quite well. Lucicano’s work has served to inspire all of us who write in the field of ICT to critically examine where this field is taking us. This is what Joseph Weizenbaum asked us to do in 1984. He is richly deserving of this award."
Dr. Floridi will receive the award and present the Weizenbaum lecture at the CEPE 2013 conference in Lisbon, in June 2013.
Anthony Beavers, professor of philosophy and director of cognitive science at the University of Evansville, was presented with the 2012 World Technology Award in Ethics this past Tuesday night at a special ceremony held at Rockefeller Plaza in New York City.
He was recognized for his work in moral theory, which attempts to show how and why existing ethical frameworks are insufficiently suited to the information age and why ethicists need to develop other alternatives.
The World Technology Awards are presented in association with TIME, Fortune, CNN, Technology Review, and Science and go to the "peer-nominated, peer-elected most innovative people in science and technology" defined as those doing "the innovative work of the likely longest significance."
Thirty awards are offered each year, twenty to individuals and ten to corporations. Winners this year included SpaceX, the first private company to get a rocket to the space station and back, Ekso Bionics for successfully developing technology to allow paraplegics to walk on their own through the use of a robotic exoskeleton, and NASA Engineer Adam Steltzner of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena for his role in successfully landing the rover Curiosity on Mars this past August. Among the more recognizable past recipients of World Technology Awards are Al Gore (for Policy), Linus Torvalds, developer of the Linux operating system (for Commerce / Communication Technology), Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World-Wide Web (for Communication Technology), Larry Page and Sergey Brin, founders of Google (for Marketing Communications), and Mark Zuckerberg, lead developer and co-founder of Facebook (also for Marketing Communications).