[PHILOS-L] CFA: AISB 2026 Symposium: Hype, Promise, Speculation; University of Sussex (UK), 1-2 July 2026
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Y J Erden
Jan 8, 2026, 2:17:47 PM (yesterday) Jan 8
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Please send enquiries to Y. J. Erden (University of Twente): y.j....@utwente.nl
Call for Abstracts: AISB 2026 Symposium
1-2 July 2026, AISB 2026, University of Sussex, UK, https://aisb.org.uk/
AISB 2026 Keynote Speaker: Anil Seth, Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience, University of Sussex
Day of celebration: life and work of Prof Margaret Boden, 30 June.
Attendance at the day of celebration is free for attendees of the AISB Convention.
Symposium outline
In this symposium we intend to tackle complementary issues related to the likelihood of a replication crisis in computer science and computational methods, and an emerging AI bubble.
Website: https://aisb.org.uk/aisb-2026-symposium-hype-promise-and-speculation
Submission: Extended abstracts of 500 words (maximum, excluding references) to Easychair: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=aibc2026
Deadline: 6 March 2026
OVERVIEW:
The replication crisis
The replication crisis has crossed multiple fields in science asking if results presented in published papers can be reproduced, repeated, and/or replicated. In their efforts to verify results various disciplines, including computer science, have already found that the answer for too many papers is “no” (Gundersen et al 2025, Cockburn et al 2020). In this symposium we look at the replication crisis as it pertains especially to computer science, whether within the discipline (cf. Cockburn et al 2020), or as applied to, or utilised in, other disciplines, such as computational modelling for neuroscience (Miłkowski et al 2018). There is also uncertainty about the extent to which ‘questionable research practices’ (QRPs) can be found in the above contexts. These can include manipulating data for statistically significant results (p-hacking), post hoc analysis to find statistically significant outcomes (p-fishing), or to present these as expected, i.e. ‘Hypothesising After the Results are Known’ (HARKing) (Cockburn et al 2020). Meanwhile, there are also proposals to address QRPs in computer science research, for instance through replication or the use of pre-study registered reports that include hypotheses and methods etc (Brown et al 2022).
AI bubbles
It’s clear that AI development is expanding substantially (Giattino et al 2023) , but the extent to which this growth is sustainable is unclear. Meanwhile, the possibility of this becoming another bubble, like those from the dot com boom and real estate, is clear (Carvão 2025). A bubble is a vague concept that captures where a process or commodity is valued or hyped beyond its intrinsic worth, typically in unsustainable ways. If contemporary expectations currently dominating the AI field do turn out to be a bubble we can expect further expansion, and then collapse, typically causing damage in the process. The economic damage of a collapse is already estimated by US commentators to rival the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 1990 and the financial crash of 2008 (Allyn 2025, Casselman and Ember 2025, Yip 2025). In the symposium we look beyond the speculation of AI stocks at the promises and reality of AI capabilities and what the effects of the potential bubble are. In addition to the above are epistemic bubbles, which form around new or ‘popular’ ideas. ‘Epistemic bubbles’ may include ‘self-segregated’ networks of ‘like-minded people’ whose members are ‘liable to converge on and resist correction of false, misleading or unsupported claims’ (Sheeks 2023). These bubbles can in turn create ‘social epistemic’ structures which are similar to echo chambers, ‘in which other relevant voices have been actively discredited’ (Nguyen 2020). In AI contexts, these epistemic bubbles might exclude voices who are critical of these technologies, or who doubt either its identity as AI, or its scope for positive impacts and change. Not least as ‘AI’ as a term brings greater expectations, including financial, compared with describing the technology in terms of its components and capacities, e.g. as LLMs, RAGs, DNNs, transformers, models, etc. Epistemic bubbles can also be created through the use of AI itself, for instance due to its scope for personalisation on media platforms, and agreeableness in GenAI chatbots, such that views of users are neither challenged nor developed.
Reference list here
TOPICS OF INTEREST
We invite papers from a wide range of disciplines, including: computer science, AI, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, Explainable AI, philosophy, behavioural sciences, psychology, social sciences, and those working with computational models, e.g. in finance.
We welcome a broad variety of topics, including but not limited to:
SUBMISSION AND PUBLICATION DETAILS
Submission: Extended abstracts of 500 words (maximum, excluding references) to Easychair: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=aibc2026
Deadlines:
SYMPOSIUM ORGANISERS
Organising Committee
Y. J. Erden (University of Twente) y.j....@utwente.nl
Kiona Bijker (University of Twente) k.bi...@student.utwente.nl
Katleen Gabriels (Maastricht University) k.gab...@maastrichtuniversity.nl
Martin Lentschat (Université Toulouse) martin.l...@univ-tlse2.fr
Doina Bucur (University of Twente) d.b...@utwente.nl
Programme committee
Maren Behrensen (Philosophy, University of Twente)
Marcus Gerhold (Computer Science, University of Twente)
Susannah E. Glickman (History, Stony Brook University)
Adam Henschke (Philosophy, University of Twente)
Saana Jukola (Philosophy, University of Twente)
Miles MacLeod (Philosophy, University of Twente)
Cyrus C. M. Mody (STS, Maastricht University)
Yagmur Ozturk (Grenoble Informatics Laboratory (LIG), Université Grenoble Alpes)
Stephen Rainey (Philosophy, TU Delft)
Nicola Strisciuglio (Computer Science, University of Twente)
Rob Wortham (Dept of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Bath)
AISB 2026 Keynote Speaker: Anil Seth, Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience, University of Sussex
Day of celebration: life and work of Prof Margaret Boden, 30 June.
Attendance at the day of celebration is free for attendees of the AISB Convention.
Symposium outline
In this symposium we intend to tackle complementary issues related to the likelihood of a replication crisis in computer science and computational methods, and an emerging AI bubble.
Website: https://aisb.org.uk/aisb-2026-symposium-hype-promise-and-speculation
Submission: Extended abstracts of 500 words (maximum, excluding references) to Easychair: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=aibc2026
Deadline: 6 March 2026
OVERVIEW:
The replication crisis
The replication crisis has crossed multiple fields in science asking if results presented in published papers can be reproduced, repeated, and/or replicated. In their efforts to verify results various disciplines, including computer science, have already found that the answer for too many papers is “no” (Gundersen et al 2025, Cockburn et al 2020). In this symposium we look at the replication crisis as it pertains especially to computer science, whether within the discipline (cf. Cockburn et al 2020), or as applied to, or utilised in, other disciplines, such as computational modelling for neuroscience (Miłkowski et al 2018). There is also uncertainty about the extent to which ‘questionable research practices’ (QRPs) can be found in the above contexts. These can include manipulating data for statistically significant results (p-hacking), post hoc analysis to find statistically significant outcomes (p-fishing), or to present these as expected, i.e. ‘Hypothesising After the Results are Known’ (HARKing) (Cockburn et al 2020). Meanwhile, there are also proposals to address QRPs in computer science research, for instance through replication or the use of pre-study registered reports that include hypotheses and methods etc (Brown et al 2022).
AI bubbles
It’s clear that AI development is expanding substantially (Giattino et al 2023) , but the extent to which this growth is sustainable is unclear. Meanwhile, the possibility of this becoming another bubble, like those from the dot com boom and real estate, is clear (Carvão 2025). A bubble is a vague concept that captures where a process or commodity is valued or hyped beyond its intrinsic worth, typically in unsustainable ways. If contemporary expectations currently dominating the AI field do turn out to be a bubble we can expect further expansion, and then collapse, typically causing damage in the process. The economic damage of a collapse is already estimated by US commentators to rival the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 1990 and the financial crash of 2008 (Allyn 2025, Casselman and Ember 2025, Yip 2025). In the symposium we look beyond the speculation of AI stocks at the promises and reality of AI capabilities and what the effects of the potential bubble are. In addition to the above are epistemic bubbles, which form around new or ‘popular’ ideas. ‘Epistemic bubbles’ may include ‘self-segregated’ networks of ‘like-minded people’ whose members are ‘liable to converge on and resist correction of false, misleading or unsupported claims’ (Sheeks 2023). These bubbles can in turn create ‘social epistemic’ structures which are similar to echo chambers, ‘in which other relevant voices have been actively discredited’ (Nguyen 2020). In AI contexts, these epistemic bubbles might exclude voices who are critical of these technologies, or who doubt either its identity as AI, or its scope for positive impacts and change. Not least as ‘AI’ as a term brings greater expectations, including financial, compared with describing the technology in terms of its components and capacities, e.g. as LLMs, RAGs, DNNs, transformers, models, etc. Epistemic bubbles can also be created through the use of AI itself, for instance due to its scope for personalisation on media platforms, and agreeableness in GenAI chatbots, such that views of users are neither challenged nor developed.
Reference list here
TOPICS OF INTEREST
We invite papers from a wide range of disciplines, including: computer science, AI, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, Explainable AI, philosophy, behavioural sciences, psychology, social sciences, and those working with computational models, e.g. in finance.
We welcome a broad variety of topics, including but not limited to:
- Machine learning (e.g. modelling, AI)
- Large language models
- Neural networks
- Deep learning
- Explainable AI
- Decision trees
- Replication crisis
- AI bubble(s)
- What kinds of impacts are computational methods having on science, e.g. machine learning methods, statistical analysis?
- How do computer science methods harm or help the replicability of research?
- Is research in computer science replicable?
- Does the name ‘Artificial Intelligence’ have an effect on what is expected of AI?
- Are current valuations (financial, social etc) of AI realistic?
- Is there an AI bubble in science?
- Related bubbles that might be relevant to these topics, e.g. is big data also a bubble?
SUBMISSION AND PUBLICATION DETAILS
Submission: Extended abstracts of 500 words (maximum, excluding references) to Easychair: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=aibc2026
Deadlines:
- Abstract submission deadline: 6 March 2026
- Notification of acceptance/rejection decisions: 17 April 2026
- Final versions of accepted abstracts: 22 May 2026
- Conference: 1 to 2 July 2026 [symposium date tbc]
SYMPOSIUM ORGANISERS
Organising Committee
Y. J. Erden (University of Twente) y.j....@utwente.nl
Kiona Bijker (University of Twente) k.bi...@student.utwente.nl
Katleen Gabriels (Maastricht University) k.gab...@maastrichtuniversity.nl
Martin Lentschat (Université Toulouse) martin.l...@univ-tlse2.fr
Doina Bucur (University of Twente) d.b...@utwente.nl
Programme committee
Maren Behrensen (Philosophy, University of Twente)
Marcus Gerhold (Computer Science, University of Twente)
Susannah E. Glickman (History, Stony Brook University)
Adam Henschke (Philosophy, University of Twente)
Saana Jukola (Philosophy, University of Twente)
Miles MacLeod (Philosophy, University of Twente)
Cyrus C. M. Mody (STS, Maastricht University)
Yagmur Ozturk (Grenoble Informatics Laboratory (LIG), Université Grenoble Alpes)
Stephen Rainey (Philosophy, TU Delft)
Nicola Strisciuglio (Computer Science, University of Twente)
Rob Wortham (Dept of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Bath)
--
Dr Y. J. Erden
Associate Professor in Philosophy
University of Twente
AISB Vice Chair
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