Time:

Begin: Thursday, June 18 (the exact time will be announced soon)

End: Friday, June 19, 13:00 (the exact time will be announced soon)

Location: University of Southern Denmark, Campus Kolding, Universitetsparken 1, 6000 Kolding (room 31.43)

Description: As the rapid development of social robots continues, “simulation” has emerged as a key focus in the debate about social robots.  For example, robots are currently incapable of experiencing emotions as conscious and embodied beings; but it might be possible to simulate the experience of emotions or to create expressions of  “artificial emotions”  that suffice to persuade their human interactors that the robot in fact feels a basic emotion such as care.  On the other hand, the simulation of interactive capacities in robots offers new ways to study human social interaction in cognitive science, linguistics, psychology, and anthropology. Also in practical, e.g., therapeutic, contexts simulation plays a central role, since the differences between simulated and real human capacities have surprisingly positive consequences in some applications. 

The first session of this workshop will emphasize on philosophical perspectives on simulation, especially on the question of whether (a) the human capacity of practical judgment ("phronesis") can be simulated, and (b) whether artificial emotions or other simulations of human capacities can amount to an unethical trickery.  

For a second session we invite papers and presentations  from any relevant discipline (robotics, anthropology, psychology, art, education, linguistics, cognitive science, computer science, sociology, science and technology studies, philosophy. etc.), that address “simulation” in conjunction with the design, development, and deployment of social robots.