We are happy to announce that the AISB 2026 Convention will be held at Sussex University in June 2026. More details and dates to follow shortly.
Spotlight Seminar on AI: Anthony Cohn (30 January 2025)
The Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence, in collaboration with the AISB (Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour, UK) is pleased to announce the next seminar of its Spotlight Seminars on AI initiative:
January 30 – 5:00 P.M. (CET)
Title: Evaluating Commonsense Reasoning in Large Language Models
Speaker: Anthony Cohn, University of Leeds, UK
Streaming link: https://www.youtube.com/@AixiaIt/streams
Abstract: In this talk I will discuss the ability of LLMs to perform commonsense reasoning, particularly with regard to spatial reasoning. Across a wide range of LLMs, although they show abilities rather better than chance, they still struggle with many questions and tasks, for example when reasoning about directions, or topological relations. I will also discuss issues arising from the fact that some of the most powerful language models currently are proprietary systems, accessible only via (typically restrictive) web or software programming interfaces. This is the Language-Models-as-a-Service (LMaaS) paradigm. In contrast with scenarios where full model access is available, as in the case of open-source models, such closed-off language models present specific challenges for evaluating, benchmarking, and testing them.
Bio: Anthony (Tony) Cohn is Professor of Automated Reasoning in the School of Computer Science, University of Leeds. His current research interests range from theoretical work on spatial calculi (receiving a KR test-of-time classic paper award in 2020) and spatial ontologies, to cognitive vision, modelling spatial information in the hippocampus, and Decision Support Systems, particularly for the built environment, as well as robotics. He is Foundation Models lead at the Alan Turing Institute where he is conducting research on evaluating the capabilities of large language models, in particular with respect to commonsense reasoning, and is also a co-investigator on a project combining LLMs and probabilistic answer set programming. He is Editor-in-Chief of Spatial Cognition and Computation and was previously Editor-in-chief of the AI journal. He has previously been President of IJCAI, EurAI, KR inc, and AISB. He is the recipient of the 2021 Herbert A Simon Cognitive Systems Prize, and is also (uniquely) the recipient of Distinguished Service Awards from the three main international AI societies: IJCAI, AAAI and EurAI, as well as from KR Inc. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Learned Society of Wales, the AI societies AAAI, AISB, EurAI and AAIA, as well as the CORE Academy (International Core Academy of Sciences and Humanities) and the International AI Industry Alliance.
The joint AI*IA/AISB Committee of the Spotlight Seminars on AI,
Giuseppe De Giacomo
Floriana Grasso
Antonio Lieto
Bertie Müller
Luciano Serafini
Further information on this and upcoming talks in the Winter series can be found at https://aixia.it/en/incontri/spotlight-seminars-on-ai-winter-2025/
Royal Bank of Canada to Support AISB 2025
We are delighted to announce that Royal Bank of Canada have kindly agreed to support the AISB Convention 2025. RBC are a long time supporter of the AISB Convention and we are grateful for their support again this year.
AISB 2025 takes place on 14th – 16th January 2025 at UWE, Bristol. Places are still available for registration online. Full details of the convention and registration options are available here.
AISB Convention 2025 – Call for Symposia Proposals
AISB Convention 2025 – CALL FOR SYMPOSIA PROPOSALS
priority deadline: 2 August 2024
regular deadline: 30 August 2024
14-16 January 2025, University of the West of England UWE, Bristol, UK
https://aisb.org.uk/aisb-convention-2025-non-members/
The society for the study of Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behaviour (the AISB) annual convention will be held at UWE Bristol, UK on 14-16 January 2025. The convention will follow the same overall structure as previous conventions, namely a set of co-located, parallel symposia, as well as invited and plenary lectures and sessions. We are currently seeking proposals for these symposia. Typical symposia last for one or two days, and can include any type of event of academic benefit: talks, posters, panels, discussions, demonstrations, outreach sessions, etc. Proposals to run symposia are welcomed across all areas of Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behaviour, broadly understood. This includes interdisciplinary topics rooted in the social sciences, arts, and humanities.
Possible themes are listed below (not an exhaustive list):
- Knowledge Representation
- Discourse and Dialogue
- Natural Language Processing
- Computational Intelligence
- Computational Theory of Mind
- Philosophical Foundations of Artificial Intelligence
- Consciousness and Machine Consciousness
- Human and Machine Creativity
- Simulation of Human and Animal Behaviour
- Neural Networks and Machine Learning
- Computational Neuroscience
- Robotics and Robot Ethics
- Epigenetic and Developmental Robotics
- Autonomous Agents and Agent Based Computing
- Enactivism
- Embodied Cognition
- Ecological Cognition
- Embedded [Social] Cognition
- Extended Cognition
- Affective Intelligence and Behaviour
- Embodied Audio-Visual Interaction
- Style in Text; Textual Forensics
- Robotics, Perception and Art
- Live Algorithms
- Cultural, Social and Media Theory and Computing
- Sensorimotor Theory
- Cybernetics and Human Knowing
- Sensory Substitution
- Distributed Thinking
- Robot Language and Communication
- Proposing a Symposium
Symposia Organisation
Each symposium is organised by its own organising committee. The committee proposes the symposium, defines the area(s) and structure for it, issues calls for abstracts/papers etc., manages the process of selecting submitted papers for inclusion, and compiles an electronic file for inclusion in the convention proceedings. Organisers are welcome and encouraged to invite keynote speakers to their symposia, but they are also encouraged to seek external funding in order to pay keynote speakers’ registration fees and other costs. Symposium organisers and all speakers will be expected to pay registration fees.
Proposers are welcome to submit, or be involved with more than one proposal.
Proposers need not already be members of the AISB (though you will be expected to join the AISB if your symposium proposal is accepted).
Symposium proposals will be handled in two phases: For early approval, apply by the priority deadline. This will ensure the symposium is hosted at AISB 2025 if it meets the basic criteria. Proposals received after the priority deadline but before the standard deadline will undergo the same process, but acceptance is subject to conference venue logistics, such as room availability.
Priority deadline for symposium proposals: 2 August 2024
Notification of acceptance (first round): 9 August 2024
Standard deadline for symposium proposals: 30 August 2024
Notification of acceptance (second round): 6 September 2024
Submissions should consist of the following:
- A title
- A 300-1000 word description of the scope of the symposium, and its relevance to the convention along with the nature of the academic events (talks, posters, panels, demonstrations, etc.)
- Whether the symposium is intended as a sequel to a symposium at a previous AISB conference.
- An indication of whether submissions will be by abstract, extended abstract or full paper.
- Your preferences about the intended length of the symposium as a number of days (preferably one or two days, but anything from half a day to three days), together with a brief justification.
- A description (up to 500 words) of any experience you have in organisation of academic research meetings (please note that it is not a requirement that you have such experience).
- Names and affiliations of any invited speakers that you may have in mind for the symposium.
- Your names and full contact details, together with, if possible, names and workplaces of the members of a preliminary, partial programme committee.
Please email your completed proposal to symposia-proposals@aisb.org.uk
Venue
The University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) is thrilled to welcome you to our vibrant and dynamic campus, known for its cutting-edge facilities and strong connections with industry. We hope you enjoy your stay and take advantage of all that UWE Bristol and the beautiful city of Bristol have to offer. UWE Bristol’s main campus is located 2 miles from the M4 and M5 motorways and has good links with Bristol Parkway train station and city centre buses.
Next Spotlight Seminar on AI – 20 June 2024
The Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence, in collaboration with the AISB (Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour, UK) is pleased to announce the next seminar of its Spotlight Seminars on AI initiative:
30 June – 4:00PM (BST)
Title: Symbolic Reasoning for Large Language Models
Speaker: Guy Van den Broeck, UCLA, USA
Link Streaming (Live section): https://www.youtube.com/c/AixiaIt
Many expect that AI will solve society’s problems by simply being more intelligent than we are. Implicit in this bullish perspective is the assumption that AI will naturally learn to reason from data: that it can form trains of thought that “make sense”, similar to how a human expert might reason about a case, or more formally, how a mathematician might prove a theorem. This talk will investigate the question whether this behavior can be learned from data, and how we can design the next generation of AI techniques that can achieve such capabilities. It will focus on neurosymbolic reasoning for large language models, both at training and generation time, using probabilistic circuits as the architecture that bridges learning and reasoning.
Bio: Guy Van den Broeck is an Associate Professor and Samueli Fellow at UCLA, in the Computer Science Department, where he directs the StarAI lab. His research interests are in Machine Learning, Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, and Artificial Intelligence in general. His papers have been recognized with awards from key conferences such as AAAI, UAI, KR, and OOPSLA. Guy is the recipient of an NSF CAREER award, a Sloan Fellowship, and the IJCAI-19 Computers and Thought Award.
The joint AI*IA/AISB Committee of the Spotlight Seminars on AI,
Giuseppe De Giacomo
Floriana Grasso
Antonio Lieto
Bertie Muller
Luciano Serafini