[PHILOS-L] [Reminder] CALL FOR ABSTRACTS: Workshop "Evaluating Artificial Consciousness" (10-11 June 2025, Bochum)

[Wanja Wiese]

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CALL FOR ABSTRACTS: workshop "Evaluating Artificial Consciousness" (10-11 June 2025)

Organisers: Wanja Wiese & Albert Newen (Ruhr University Bochum)

 https://philevents.org/event/show/131314

 

We welcome submissions for 45 minutes presentations (including 15 min for discussion) to our workshop "Evaluating Artificial Consciousness".

The workshop will take place on the 10th & 11th of June 2025, at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany.

 

We intend to discuss the problem of artificial consciousness from multiple perspectives, including metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical perspectives.

Potential topics for talks include, but are not limited to, the following:

• How can the science of consciousness contribute to evaluating the possibility of consciousness in artificial systems?
• How can we evaluate the strength of evidence for consciousness in artificial systems?
• How can we evaluate to what extent artificial systems have agency?
• How are consciousness and agency related to moral status?
• Specifically: what moral significance (if any) does phenomenal consciousness have?
• To what extent, and how, should considerations about AI welfare inform policy decisions?

 

We are pleased to present the following list of confirmed invited speakers with preliminary talk titles:

Patrick Butlin (Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford, UK), “AI consciousness: The big picture and some details”

Joanna Bryson (Hertie School Berlin), "How Consciousness Relates to Morality: When Artificial Consciousness Is Unimportant"

Leonard Dung (Ruhr-University Bochum), “Artificial consciousness, natural kinds, and scientific virtues”

Michele Farisco (Centre for Research Ethics and Bioethics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden; Bioethics Unit, Biogem Institute, Ariano Irpino (AV), Italy), “The challenge of finding indicators of consciousness in AI”

François Kammerer (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Archives Henri Poincaré, Strasbourg), “Moral significance in artificial systems: if not consciousness, then what?”

Johannes Kleiner (Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich; Institute for Psychology, University of Bamberg), “Can no-go theorems help evaluate the possibility of consciousness in artificial systems?”   

Lucia Melloni (Ruhr-University Bochum), Talk title TBA

Winnie Street (Senior Researcher on the Google Paradigms of Intelligence Team and fellow at the Institute of Philosophy, University of London), "Could an AI be sentient? Theoretical, behavioural and ethical approaches"

 

Guidelines for abstract submissions:

Max. 600 words (excluding references).

Deadline: 31.03.2025

Submission via: https://eac-2025.sciencesconf.org/

Workshop dates: 10.-11. June 2025

 

Authors of accepted submissions will receive a (partial) reimbursement of their travel expenses for accommodation (up to three nights) and transportation (receipts are required). More specifically, we offer the following financial support:

Up to 300 € for participants from Germany, 450 € for participants from the rest of Europe, and 600 € for participants from the rest of the world.

 

After the workshop, a separate call for papers for a special issue on the workshop's topic will be launched. All speakers are welcome to submit a manuscript version of their talk to the special issue. The issue will be published in the diamond open access journal Philosophy and the Mind Sciences (PhiMiSci; https://philosophymindscience.org).

 

Funding for the workshop is provided by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) – project number 514161146.

 

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