Category Archives: public engagement

“Our climate is changing too fast for forests to adapt. Can we help them?” at Simon Fraser University (SFU) Café Scientifique on October 28, 202 from 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm PDT + Nov. event

It’s been too long (in a January 19, 2015 posting) since I last featured an SFU Café Scientifique here. I’m glad to have the opportunity to do it again and just before COP26, the United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference being held in Edinburgh, Scotland from October 31 – November 12, 2021..

From an October 19, 2021 SFU Café Scientifique announcement (received via email), Note: I have made some formatting changes,

We are excited to announce that our fall sessions are back by popular
demand, and we look forward to having you join us for our next virtual [on Zoom]
SFU Café Scientifique!
“Our climate is changing too fast for forests to adapt. Can we help
them?“
NOW OPEN FOR REGISTRATION
Thursday October 28, 2021 5:00-6:30pm
Dr. Jim Mattsson, SFU Department of Biology
Register here:
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/sfu-cafe-scientifique-tickets-185182705457

Here is a description from the registration page,

About this event
Rapid climate change has resulted in the decline of tree species, as the spread of naturally resistant genetic variants to combat new conditions is too low. Dr. Jim Mattsson from the Department of Biological Sciences will give local examples of such losses and present research that identifies genetic variants with a high tolerance to new climate conditions that could potentially be used for reforesting affected areas.

According to Mattison’s SFU profile page where he’s listed as an Associate Professor, Plant Functional Genomics with an undergraduate degreee and PhD obtained at Uppsala University, Sweden and which gives a brief description of his interests,

Our research focuses on the genetic regulation of vascular tissue development in plants. Specific questions are (1) what is the molecular mechanism behind vascular strand formation? (2) which genes regulate fiber differentiation? (3) which genes regulate the rate of wood formation and the cellular composition of wood? … We are also setting up induced mutant populations of western red cedar and hybrid poplars for identification of mutations in genes of interest through so called TILLING technology. …

Given the focus on forests and trees, I’m a little surprised Mattison isn’t at the University of British Columbia (UBC) where they have a faculty of forestry. As for western red cedar (redcedar), I found a Genome BC (British Columbia) project, “Health Future Forests,” which focuses on western red cedars,

University of British Columbia researchers and British Columbia’s government are joining forces to protect and enhance one of the province’s most iconic symbols and valuable resources.
The life of the majestic western redcedar and the history of British Columbia have been intertwined for as long as humans have walked, fished and forested the West Coast. Known as arborvitae – the tree of life – the redcedar is both British Columbia’s official tree and a $1-billion annual industry. (Scientists spell “redcedar” as one word to indicate a false classification [emphasis mine]; the redcedar is actually a member of the cypress family.)
Industry will face a challenge as they transition from old growth forests, with trees more than 250 years old, to younger second-growth forests that have sprung up following human-caused events like logging or natural disturbances such as wildfire. Because of their size and age, second growth forests are less productive than old growth forests, generating less wood with lower durability.
In addition, the health of redcedar forests can be negatively impacted by shifts in the quantity and types of pests influenced by climate change.
…
Traditional breeding strategies for western redcedar can take decades to produce the desired traits of wood durability inherent in old growth trees. Dr. Joerg Bohlmann of the University of British Columbia is working with Dr. John H. Russell of British Columbia’s Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations to apply genomic selection to reduce that time by up to 30 years. Genomic selection will accelerate the development of tree populations that are resistant to multiple pests and reduce the need for time-consuming and costly phenotyping (this involves observing the characteristics of an organism resulting from the interaction of its genes with the environment). Because key industry producers and users of these trees are actively participating in the project, technology transfer and commercialization will be seamless.

I haven’t forgotten the poplars, in an April 7, 2014 posting three different projects on poplars (scroll down about 40% of the way for the UBC work) are featured.

Perhaps Mattison is involved in the either or both the western redcedar and poplar work being done at UBC.

Coming up in November 2021

SAVE THE DATE: REGISTRATION OPENING SOON
Thursday November 25, 2021 5:00-6:30pm
Dr. Ryan Morin, SFU Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry
“How genome research is influencing our understanding of B-cell
lymphomas”

I gather the next one will be about cancer.

Science & You 2021 conference November 16-19, 2021

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It’s six years (May 4, 2015 posting) since I last featured the Science & You conference here. Science & You 2021 (hosted by l’Université de Lorraine) will be held in Robert Schuman Conference Center in Metz (France), 16 – 19 November 2021.

Before launching into any details about this year’s program, here’s a little information from the Science & You About (Who we are) page,

For the University of Lorraine, the ambition behind Science & You is to bring closer science and citizens in order to raise awareness on science culture’s societal stakes.
Following the Journées Hubert Curien Conference, Science & You is an international science culture event addressed to professionals (researchers, PhD students, heads of museums and science centers, science communicators and journalists…), and open to the general public.
The event is made of 4 concurrent parts:
– a congress dedicated to science culture, supervised by an international scientific committee,
– a formation on how to master science communication techniques, addressed to international PhD students,
– a “science & culture” forum, which showcases innovative actions of science communication,
– a series of cultural events addressed to the general public, disseminated across the region.
Science & You’s first edition took place in Nancy (France) form 1st to 6th June 2015, and gathered 1000 congressists, 115 PhD students, and 10 000 visitors of the general public.
Consequently to this success, partnerships have been made with science dissemination structures on an international level. The first franchised edition of Science & You took place in Montréal in May 2017, in partnership with Acfas – Association francophone pour le savoir, ahead of their annual congress.
NAIS – National Academy of Innovation Strategy – has organized Science & You’s second franchised edition in Beijing in September 2018.
…

Here are Keynote Speakers from the 2021 program (Note: I was not able to successfully copy and paste a photo for Michel Dubois),

Keynotes
Thursday, November 18th, 10h15-11h15
Gérald Bronner, The authority of science is under threat from conspiracy theories
Gerald Bronner, Paris Diderot University, France
Wednesday, November 17th, 10h15-11h15
Michel Dubois, “Changing your genes? “The challenges of science communication in face the social life of the epigenetics and genetic engineering [sic]
Michel Dubois, GEMASS (CNRS, Lettres Sorbonne University), France
Tuesday, November 16th, 11h00-12h00
Gordon Gauchat, Science, culture and change: public perceptions of science in the US over the past 50 years
Gordon Gauchat, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, United States
Friday, November 19th, 10h15-11h15
Mehita Iqani, Challenges of science communication in South Africa
Mehita Iqani, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
Thursday, November 18th, 11h15-12h15
Kyoko Sato, Science communication during the Covid-19 pandemic: East/West comparison
Kyoko Sato, Stanford University, United States
Friday, November 19th, 15h30-16h30
Peter Weingart, Trust or attention – tensions between science communication and public relations
Peter Weingart, Bielefeld University, Germany

This, like many other conferences these days, is a hybrid event, i.e., some combination of in-person and virtual events.

Here’s more from the Practical information and Registration webpage,

The fees include registration for both the “Journées Hubert Curien” Conference and the “Science and Culture” Forum.
They include :
> access to all the conferences and workshops of the JHC Conference
> access to the professional Forum
> coffee breaks
> badges
> participation certificate
Health situation Covid-19: in case the Conference is held partly or completely online for health reasons, fees will remain unchanged.
…
Informations [sic] regarding other delegates:
Science&You will offer the possibility to attend the scientific programme by videoconference, for all registered delegates who will not be able to physically be present at the Conference. In that case, an individual link will be sent by the organizing team a few days before the Conference.

Good luck to the organizers (I get the impression they strongly prefer a fully in-person conference).

COVID-19 science communications and recommendations for improvement

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As far as superstars for Canadian science communication go, there is only one candidate and that would be Timothy Caulfield, professor of Health Law and Policy a the University of Alberta.

Not being Caulfield’s biggest fan, I stumbled onto some of his latest work by accident in a Tweet from Canadian Science Publishing (@cdnsciencepub). It sent me on a search that resulted in an open access paper (a pretty good one too or so I thought), a description of the research project that resulted in the paper, and more.

This story begins in 2020 with the research project description, from an April 15, 2020 posting on the Alberta Innovates (a provincial research entity) website,

Timothy Caulfield may be the most well-known face of scientific myth-busting. He is the host of Netflix’s The User’s Guide to Cheating Death and the author of multiple bestsellers on science and misinformation, including Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong About Everything? and The Vaccination Picture. He’s also a law professor at the University of Alberta, the Research Director of its Health Law Institute, and a Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy.
In March [2020], Caulfield and his team received a $381,708 grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Alberta Innovates to research the spread of misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and recommend ways to counter it.
…
Q: Are you seeing any types of themes around COVID misinformation?
A: In the early days a lot of the misinformation was about the source of it. It’s a bio-weapon, right? Or even the idea that it was a hoax. Now what we’re seeing is a lot of the misinformation, not surprisingly, is about cures, is about prevention, about things that people can do in order to avoid getting it. That’s problematic.
The other thing we’re seeing is a lot of marketing, which is infuriating. A lot of people taking advantage of the fear and the uncertainty to push products.
Q: Why don’t people trust science?
A: That’s actually a topic that we’ve been exploring for a long time at the institute, looking at it in different contexts. Of course it’s complex. I think that there is a conflation between science and scientific institutions. Obviously a lot’s going on here, but things like the misbehaviour of the pharmaceutical industry have an impact.
…
The other thing that we’ve done research on and we’ve found that anytime industry is involved, trust erodes very quickly. You can say, “Do you trust the university research?” People say yes. If that same university researcher receives industry funding, the trust erodes, that’s part of the story.
There’s also this erosion in trust with the health-care system. Because many people feel like it hasn’t treated them well. …

A May 30, 2020 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) news item fills in a few more blanks about COVID-19 misinformation,

…
As new science emerges, rapid changes in information and health advice have created fertile ground for conspiracy theories and misinformation to flourish, says Timothy Caulfield, a University of Alberta professor of health law and science policy.
“When things are uncertain, when there’s a lot of fear, when the science is still moving, people are more likely to believe conspiracy theories,” Caufield said. “That’s certainly the situation that we have now.”
A recent Carleton University study found that half of Canadians believe at least one conspiracy theory around the novel coronavirus, including 26 per cent who believe it was lab-created bioweapon.
…
That’s the kind of data that Caulfield, a Canada research chair in health law and policy, is looking at as part of an ongoing research project into the viral spread of misinformation during the pandemic.
In a wide-ranging Q&A with Nancy Carlson, host of CBC Edmonton’s News at 6, Caulfield said sorting good information from bad is as simple as thinking like a scientist, a skill that only requires a healthy degree of curiosity and internet access.
…
Where is it all coming from?
“It’s really coming from all over and that’s why it is so difficult to battle,” Caulfield said. But there are a few notable trends.
Celebrities and prominent individuals are the source of about 20 per cent of misinformation, but their posts have extraordinary reach, making up more than 70 per cent of what is shared online, Caulfield said. “That really gives you a sense of the power of pop culture.”
Bots, particularly on Twitter, play an important role, while the role of social media in general — Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and more — can’t be underplayed. “This really has been a social media-driven infodemic,” he said.
…
Changing course a ‘badge of honour’
Should the border be closed? Do masks make a difference? Is hydroxychloroquine the answer? If science is so good, why do public health officials keep changing their minds?
While public frustration is understandable, Caulfield urges people to applaud health leaders for staying on top of emerging science and changing public health rules accordingly.
“If you are a science-based decision-maker, like a public health authority … it is a badge of honour that you’re changing your mind. It’s a badge of honour that you’re willing to look at the evolving evidence and reframe a recommendation,” he said.
…
Changing the dialogue
Here is one more fact about the COVID-19 infodemic: The mind of a conspiracy theorist will not be changed. At least not easily, said Caulfield.
“They may go to an idea or a belief for one reason … but once they start to embrace it, it becomes part of who they are, it becomes part of their personal identity, it becomes part of their personal brand,” he said.
…
“What you want to do is stop their rhetoric, their belief systems, from infecting the rest of the community, [emphasis mine]” Caulfield said. “We don’t want the hard-core deniers to impact the rest of the community in a way that’s not rational. That should be the goal of science communication.”

Interesting, eh? In that last paragraph, you’d think Caulfield was talking about a virus.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Let’s do better: public representations of COVID-19 science by Timothy Caulfield, Tania Bubela, Jonathan Kimmelman, and Vardit Ravitsky. FACETS 25 March 2021 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1139/facets-2021-0018

This paper is open access.

Final comments

If COVDI-19 science communication interests you, this is a very good paper. I am particularly taken with their section on the ‘Hydroxychloroquine’ story from the first whispers that the medication might help to claims that it does to the research rush to prove/disprove the hypothesis to the entrenchment of belief in some quarters.

My reservations lie in problems that permeate science communication, (1) top/down communication, (2) disagreement means you are wrong, (3) you have to change (4) experts/government organizations are never wrong; they’ve simply gotten more data and, accordingly, have had to change course. Note: Experts/governments often pretend that they haven’t changed course due to their belief that the public has a short memory.

It’s very easy *to fall* into the traps and, with that said, there’s much value in this paper.

*’to fall’ added to sentence on Aug. 3, 2021.

Human genome editing and some difficult conversations

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I’ve been wondering when there’d be more ‘public engagement’ discussion in Canada about artificial intelligence, human genome editing, robotics, and other technologies which are rapidly changing status from ’emerging technologies’ to ’embedded technologies’.

An April 26, 2021 University of Wisconsin-Madison news release (also on EurekAlert) reviews some current human genome editing public engagement efforts and offers suggestions for improvements,

In October of 2020, Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier were awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for their discovery of an adaptable, easy way to edit genomes, known as CRISPR [clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats], which has transformed the world of genetic engineering.
CRISPR has been used to fight lung cancer and correct the mutation responsible for sickle cell anemia in stem cells. But the technology was also used by a Chinese scientist to secretly and illegally edit the genomes of twin girls — the first-ever heritable mutation of the human germline made with genetic engineering.
“We’ve moved away from an era of science where we understood the risks that came with new technology and where decision stakes were fairly low,” says Dietram Scheufele, a professor of life sciences communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Today, Scheufele and his colleagues say, we’re in a world where new technologies have very immediate and sometimes unpredictable but significant impacts on society. In a paper published the week of April 26 [2021] in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [PNAS], the researchers argue that such advanced tech, especially CRISPR, demands more robust and thoughtful public engagement if it is to be harnessed to benefit the public without crossing ethical lines.
The authors say that being thoughtful and transparent about public engagement goals and using evidence from social science can help facilitate the difficult conversations society must have about scientific issues like CRISPR and their societal implications. Effective public engagement, in turn, lays the groundwork for public ownership of advances that do arise from CRISPR.
Life sciences communication Professor Dominique Brossard and graduate student Nicole Krause, along with University of Vienna research assistant Isabelle Freiling, co-authored the report with Scheufele. The paper stems from a 2019 National Academy of Sciences colloquium on CRISPR.
Since 2012, when the CRISPR system was first described, scientists have understood both its genetic engineering potential and the need for public engagement to discuss the possible uses of the technology. Many scientists wanted to avoid rehashing the controversies surrounding genetically modified organisms, which have been harshly criticized as unnatural and unnecessary by some activists despite broad scientific support for their use.
Yet, Krause says, some scientists who supported using CRISPR began by errantly repeating the public engagement methods employed for GMOs, which “assumes that people just need more knowledge, more of an ability to understand the science.” Instead, Krause adds: “Solutions focused on tailoring communications to people’s values would make more sense.”
This values-based public engagement strategy is supported by social science research into how people form and change their opinions around new technologies. Some public engagement methods engage value systems, and encourage thoughtful conversation, more than others.
For example, what researchers term “public involvement” and “public collaboration” are methods of two-way communication involving the joint exchange of information and values and the identification and design of science-based decisions that adhere to those values. That contrasts with “public communication,” which focuses only on the dissemination of scientific information.
Scheufele and his colleagues say that such collaborative approaches could help scientists widen the representation of voices in debates around science to groups who are often overlooked, such as people with disabilities or racial minorities.
“As the scientific community, we don’t have a long track record of effective engagement mechanism with these communities,” says Scheufele. This failure to reach broader groups stems in part from the low participation rates of most science engagement events, which also attract highly selective audiences.
Another challenge is rewarding scientists for public engagement. “There’s very little incentive in academia to do this kind of work,” says Scheufele.
A recent report by Brossard and others found that a majority of land-grant faculty felt that public engagement was very important, but believed it was less important to their colleagues. That divide suggests scientists feel their engagement efforts won’t be rewarded by their peers, says Brossard.
Now, Brossard, Krause, Scheufele and colleagues have a grant from the National Science Foundation to research how to depolarize debates around CRISPR. Previous studies suggest that making people accountable for their positions helps them think more critically about their underlying reasoning. And when social scientists emphasize the complexity inherent in people’s values, it helps people consider controversial issues with more nuance.
But engaging a diverse society with pluralistic value systems in deliberations on the latest technologies will never be easy.
“The policymaking process involves a lot more than just science. Science will inform how we regulate technologies, and so will religious, political, ethical, regulatory and economic considerations,” says Scheufele. “And so the ability to actually do engagement in this much broader setting where we meaningfully contribute and guide the debate with the best available science is a major challenge.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

What we know about effective public engagement on CRISPR and beyond by Dietram A. Scheufele, Nicole M. Krause, Isabelle Freiling, and Dominique Brossard. PNAS DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2004835117 First published April 30, 2021

This paper appears to be open access.

Note: Three of the authors are based in the US and the fourth in Austria ant that’s something to bear in mind when reading the article.

Social robots for seniors in Vancouver (Canada) & stereotypes

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Receiving an email newsletter from a local group about social robots has given me an excuse to write up a few ideas I’ve been mulling with regard to older adults, stereotypes, and the rush to innovate with ‘elder care’ technology.

A request for volunteer participants for a social robot survey

It seems that in the near future seniors in Vancouver could have a real life experience with an ‘artificial friend’ if these folks have anything to do with it. In a March 2021 Vancouver neighbourhood newsletter for seniors (specifically, the West End Seniors Network [WESN] newsletter), there was a notice for participants in a research project, Note: Some formatting changes have been made but text has not been altered,

Are you 50+ years old and interested in participating in research?
Take part in a 20-minuteonline survey about social robots – you can participate even if you have no experience with robots!
For more information, email Dr. Jill Dosso at
jill.dosso@ubc.ca.
Participants will be entered to win 1 of 3 iPad Minis.
To participate, visit: bit.ly/UBCrobot4 {the survey is now closed]
Principal Investigator:Dr. Julie Robillard
LOGOS: SSHRC [Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada\, Alzheimer Society British Columbia, Neuroethics Canada, Consequential Robots, AGEWELL [emphasis mine]

There’s an image of a dog/rabbit-like robot in the notice that looks something like this,

Courtesy: Consequential Robotics [downloaded from: http://consequentialrobotics.com/]

Before the survey was shut down, I tried contacting the researcher, Dr. Jill Dosso by email with some questions and had no success either time. So, I participated in the survey, which I found to be a little disconcerting.

If memory serves, I was asked about how powerful I felt relative to the three robots (all animal-like) featured in the survey. These and other puzzling (to me) questions meant I took significantly longer than 20 minutes to complete the survey.

Are my responses truly anonymous?

I did find some additional information in the consent form such as the project name. Also, the form stimulated a question about my data. Here’s the consent form,

Survey Consent for Collection, Storage and Use of Participant Information: SOcial Co-creation of Robotic Aging TEchnologieS (SOCRATES)
As an adult over the age of fifty in Canada, you are invited to participate in this survey by Dr. Julie Robillard, Assistant Professor in Neurology at The University of British Columbia (UBC). Dr. Robillard and her team are interested in gaining a better understanding of the attitudes of adults towards pet-like social robots. The results from this survey will be collected anonymously.
This survey will take 20 minutes [emphasis mine] of your time. Your progress on the survey is saved automatically so you can take a break at any time you need to and simply return to the survey link on the same device to resume your progress. The survey will be closed on Apr 30, 2021.
We will not use your responses to try to guess your identity. We encourage you not to provide any information that might identify you or another individual. When we report the results of this study, we will not report any information that may point to your identity.
In appreciation for your time, you will have the chance to enter in a draw to win one of three iPad minis. At the end of the survey, you will be redirected to a page where you can input your email address to be entered into a draw to win one of three iPad minis. Your survey responses and the information you provide for the purposes of the draw will be kept in separate files. This ensures that your survey responses will remain anonymous and cannot be linked back to you. You may enter the draw even if you chose to withdraw from the study, simply click to the end of the survey and you will be redirected to the page where you can input your email address to be entered into the draw. The draw winners will be contacted via email after the survey is closed.
Access to your information is limited [emphasis mine] to the survey administrator and the technical support team at UBC. [Could someone hack into the system?] The survey administrator will maintain the survey and analyze the results. You will not be identified in any reports, presentations, or publications that describe these results. Aggregate survey results may be shared with other researcher or publishers. Aggregated survey results will be available at the end of the study if requested.
As a participant in this survey, the information you choose to provide will be stored in UBC’s Secured Network electronically for 5 years [emphasis mine]. Participation in this survey is voluntary. There will be no consequences to you if you choose not to participate. You do not have to answer any question that you do not want to. This survey is anonymous and individual responses will not be linked back to you.
Who can I contact if I have any questions or concerns about the study?
If you have any concerns about your rights as a research participant and/or your experiences while participating in this study, contact the research participant information line in the UBC Office of Research Ethics at 604-822-8598 or if long distance e-mail RSIL@ors.ubc.ca or call toll free 1-877-822-8598. Our ethics ID is H19-03308.
Questions about your information and this survey may be directed to the Principal Investigator:
Dr. Julie Robillard
Assistant Professor of Neurology
B402 Shaughnessy
4480 Oak Street [Children’s & Women’s Hospital]
Vancouver, BC V6H 3N1 CANADA
[T] 604.875-3923
Email: jrobilla@mail.ubc.ca
Because this survey collects responses anonymously and cannot link the information back to you, it will not be possible to withdraw your consent after you participate.

There are stories online about how technically skilled people can use anonymized data to reveal your identity; I read one such story years ago on Slate.com. The journalist had gotten a friend to agree to the test and then approached a tech specialist. The surprise was that the specialist managed to crack the friend’s identity in under 24 hours.

Universities and hospitals are high value targets and this survey was run by university researchers one of whom is jointly associated with a local hospital. BTW, over the last 18 months, I’ve been alerted by both universities I attended that my data privacy has been breached.

It would be good to know more about how my data is being protected. As for the five year time limit, is the data designed to self-destruct like it does on Mission Impossible?

Two SOCRATES?

The first SOCRATES project was in the European Union and ran from 2017 to 2019. The research topic was focused on social robots with a special emphasis on their use in eldercare.

The second SOCRATES (SOcial Co-creation of Robotic Aging TEchnologieS) project (the survey somehow informs this project) is Canadian and currently ongoing. The research topic (from Julie Robillard’s New Frontiers in Research 2018 Exploration Grant summary‘ enter Julie Robillard’s name in the ‘Filter items’ field to quickly access the project) is focused on “Improving independence and quality of life for older adults can be realized by complementing human care with robotic assistive technologies.” The SOCRATES (two) grant runs from 2018 – 2021.

Getting back to the matter at hand, the survey I took seemed more focused on people with dementia than older adults in general and how any of it would result in ‘co-creation’ is a mystery to me.

Where are the older adults and ‘co-creation opportunities’?

As far as I can tell, the answer to both questions is ‘they are nowhere’ visible as part of this project. Yes, a few people associated with AGEWEll; Canada’s aging and technology network (mentioned at the of the survey) are probably over the age of 50 (or even 60) but there doesn’t seem to be a concerted effort to integrate older people into that organization or SOCRATES (Canadian version) for planning purposes.

As for the older researchers, they tend to be professionals in the field of geriatrics, gerontology, robotics, assistive technologies, etc. So, they’re still working and they have spent years inside echo chambers and other self-reinforcing environments.

Years ago I came across the term ‘downstream public consultation’. This survey is an example of that; the social robots have been designed and the participant is asked how they feel about it. The information gathered may or may not be used but it’s not integral to the social robot project itself.

There is also ‘upstream public consultation’ but that is much more work and more difficult. It does mean that the objects of the research (in this case, older adults) could have some say in the design and implementation of the programmes and/or technologies.

Old age has much in common with childhood and/or with poverty. The default position is that you are not treated as someone with a valid opinion or idea. Someone is always trying to research you and, more often than not, help you by getting to you to do something whether you like it or not.

It’s often well meaning research but you are always aware that you are the object and the one with all of the social capital/clout is the researcher. I am of course describing a power imbalance.

The power imbalance always exists but it is severe where older adults, children, and the poor are concerned. I don’t know that it can ever be wholly resolved but I do wish researchers would acknowledge its presence in the materials describing their research. For example,look here.

Blind spot: when do you think the internet was invented?

I find it fascinating that one of the concerns often expressed and almost always assumed in the gerontology/geriatric/artificial intelligence/robotics/telecommunications (an more) communities is that older adults are technologically/digitally illiterate.

Let’s think on this.

From Evan Andrews’ December 18, 2012 article for History television channel, “Who Invented the Internet?” (article updated October 28, 2019), Note: Links have been removed,

As you might expect for a technology so expansive and ever-changing, it is impossible to credit the invention of the internet to a single person. The internet was the work of dozens of pioneering scientists, programmers and engineers who each developed new features and technologies that eventually merged to become the “information superhighway” we know today.
Long before the technology existed to actually build the internet, many scientists had already anticipated the existence of worldwide networks of information. Nikola Tesla toyed with the idea of a “world wireless system” in the early 1900s, and visionary thinkers like Paul Otlet and Vannevar Bush conceived of mechanized, searchable storage systems of books and media in the 1930s and 1940s.
Still, the first practical schematics for the internet would not arrive until the early 1960s [emphasis mine], when MIT’s [Massachusetts Institute of Technology] J.C.R. Licklider popularized the idea of an “Intergalactic Network” of computers. Shortly thereafter, computer scientists developed the concept of “packet switching,” a method for effectively transmitting electronic data that would later become one of the major building blocks of the internet.
The first workable prototype of the Internet came in the late 1960s with the creation of ARPANET, or the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. Originally funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, ARPANET used packet switching to allow multiple computers to communicate on a single network.
…

Did you notice the date I highlighted? (Andrews does an excellent job of summarizing the events that led to the internet and the world wide web and it’s not a long read, “Who Invented the Internet?“)

The stereotype that almost all older adults are technologically/digitally illiterate

As I and others have noted, people were developing and building the internet some fifty years ago. Following on that thought, it seems certain that some of these people are now older adults.

Not everyone was a pioneer ‘building’ the internet but there were many, many people whose jobs were automated early (in the 1970s and 1980s) and required to use computers. Strangely, these early adopters were not the professionals, it was their office staff (clerks and secretaries).

The word ‘required’ means that older office staff needed to learn how to use these systems if they wanted a pension.

I’ve described two assumptions that are often made. (1) Older people are technologically/digitally illiterate. (2) Professionals jumped to learn new technologies. And, since professionals were often men in the 1970s and 1980s, here’s no. (3) Men are the most tech savvy.

The assumptions are not necessarily incorrect but they are problematic when applied thoughtlessly as a stereotype for an entire population.

(I have commented on the ‘age and tech savvy’ assumption elsewhere, most notably in my March 8, 2021 posting (scroll down to the ‘Older generation has less tech savvy’ bullet point, about 60% of the way down).

Is loneliness in older people different than loneliness in youth?

I haven’t seen any research that suggests there’s a difference in loneliness at different stages of one’s life meaning I have missed it or, perhaps, the question hasn’t been asked.

It’s striking to me that all of the research I’ve seen on social robots is focused on seniors and assuaging their loneliness. Suggestions for young people tend to other, more people-oriented or pet-oriented solutions. Could social robots for seniors lead to greater isolation from society?

In the SOCRATES research summary on Dr. Julie Robillard’s Neuroscience, Engagement, and Smart Tech (NEST) Lab research page, there’s this, “… A recent systematic review of controlled trials analyzing the impact of social robots on the well-being of older adults suggests [emphasis mine] that social robots can improve nine quality of life outcomes, including reducing loneliness, stress and anxiety. [emphasis mine] …”

I appreciate the delicacy of using the word ‘suggests’, meaning that based on the previous trials, these researchers can’t conclude with certainty that a social robot will reduce loneliness, etc.

Final thoughts

The researchers never to think to explain why these social robots are pet-like rather than one of the other types. What was striking to me was that the survey didn’t have a single question about play or teaching the robot how to do things or modifying/customizing the robot.

Getting back to stereotypes and older people, there’s nothing terribly wrong with the survey or the research intent; I just wish that a little more imagination and thought had been put into questioning some of the assumptions for the Canadian SOCRATES project and others of its ilk. And if the researchers did question some of the common assumptions about older people, I wish that they had made that clear in the research summary and/or the survey materials.

Science and art/sci events during May 2021

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First off, there’s Canada’s annual Science Odyssey (see my April 26, 2021 posting for more about the government initiative or you can go directly to the Science Odyssey website for a listing of the events).

Since posting about Science Odyssey, I have received a number of emails announcing event and not all of them are part of the Odyssey experience.

From the looks of things, May 2021 is going to be a very busy month. Given how early it is in the month I expect to receive another batch of notices and most likely will post another May 2021 events roundup.

At this point, there’s a heavy emphasis on architecture (human and other) and design.

Proximal Spaces on May 3, 2021

This is one of those event within an event notices. There’s a festival: FACTT 20/21 – Improbable Times. Trans-disciplinary & Trans-national Festival of Art & Science in Portugal and within the festival there is Proximal Spaces in Toronto, Canada. Here’s more from the ArtScience Salon (ArtSci Salon) May 1, 2021 announcement (received via email),

Proximal Spaces
May 3, 2021 – 3.00 PM (EST) [12 pm PST]
Join us at this poetry reading by six Canadian artists responding to the work of eight bioartists. Event with be streamed on Facebook Live.
Please note that you don’t need to sign up in order to access the streaming as it is public.
[T]une in at https://fb.me/e/48nPFuRIG
About Proximal Space:
Proximal Spaces’ is a multi-modal exhibition that explores the environment at multiple scales in concentric circles of proximity to the body. Inspired by Edward Hall’s [Edward Twitchell Hall or E. T. Hall] 1961 notation of intimate (1.5ft), personal (4ft), social (12ft) and public (25ft) spaces in his “Proxemics” diagrams, the installation portion presents similar diagrams of his concentric circles affixed to the wall of the gallery space, as well as developed in Augmented Reality around the venue. Each of these diagrams is a montage of microscopic and sub-microscopic images of the everyday environment as experienced by a collaborative team of international bioartists, and arrayed in a fractal form. In addition, an AR-enabled application explores the invisible environments of computer generated bioaerosols suspended in the air of virtual space.
This work visualizes the variegated response of the biological environment to unprecedented levels of physical distancing and self-isolation and recent developments in vaccine design that impact our understanding of interpersonal and interspecies ‘messaging’. What continues to thrive in the 6ft ‘dead spaces’ between us? What invisible particles linger on and create a biological archive through our movements through space? The artwork presents an interesting mode of interspecies engagement through hybrid virtual and physical interaction.
In the spring of 2021, six Canadian poets – Kelley Aitken, nancy viva davis halifax, Maureen Hynes, Anita Lahey, Dilys Leman, & Sheila Stewart – came together to pursue a lyric response to Proximal Spaces. They were challenged and inspired by the virtual exhibition with its combination of art, science, and proxemics. The focus of the artworks – what inhabits and thrives in the spaces and environments where we live, work, and breathe—generated six distinctive poems.
Proximal Spaces can be experienced at: http://www.proximalspaces.com/
Artistic Directors: Joel Ong, Elaine Whittaker
Graphic Designer: Natalie Plociennik Bhavesh Kakwani
AR development: Sachin Khargie, Ryan Martin
Poets: Kelley Aitken, nancy viva davis halifax, Maureen Hynes, Anita Lahey, Dilys Leman, & Sheila Stewart
Bioartists: Roberta Buiani, Nathalie Dubois Calero, Sarah Choukah, Nicole Clouston, Jess Holtz, Mick Lorusso, Maro Pebo, Felipe Shibuya
This project is part of FACTT-Improbable Times (http://factt.arteinstitute.org/), a project spearheaded and promoted by the Arte Institute we are in or production and conception partners with Cultivamos Cultura and Ectopia (Portugal), InArts Lab@Ionian University (Greece), ArtSci Salon@The Fields Institute and Sensorium@York University (Canada), School of Visual Arts (USA), UNAM [National Autonomous University of Mexico], Arte+Ciência and Bioscénica (Mexico), and Central Academy of Fine Arts (China). Together we will work and bring into being our ideas and actions for this during the year of 2021!

Morphogenesis: Geometry, Physics, and Biology on May 5, 2021

i love this image, he seems so delighted to show off the bug (?),

Here’s more from the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI) April 30, 2021 announcement (received via email),

Morphogenesis: Geometry, Physics, and Biology
WEDNESDAY, MAY 5 [2021] at 7 pm ET [4 pm PT]
Earth is home to millions of different species – from simple plants and unicellular organisms to trees and whales and humans. The incredible diversity of life on Earth led Charles Darwin to lament that it is “enough to drive the sanest man mad.”
How can we make sense of this diversity of form, which arises from the process of morphogenesis that links molecular- and cellular-level processes to conspire and lead to the emergence of “endless forms most beautiful,” as Darwin said?
In his May 5 [2021] lecture webcast, Harvard professor L. Mahadevan [Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan] will take viewers on a journey into the mathematical, physical, and biological workings of morphogenesis to demonstrate how scientists are beginning to unlock many of the secrets that have vexed scientists since Darwin.

Possible Worlds: “How Will We Live Together?” on May 6, 2021

For those who are interested in human architecture, there’s this from a May 3, 3021 Berggruen institute announcement (received via email) about a talk by Chilean architect and 2016 Pritzker Prize winner, Alejandro Gastón Aravena Mori (Alejandro Aravena),

Possible Worlds: How Will We Live Together
May 6, 2021
11am — Virtual
Possible Worlds: The UCLA [University of California at Los Angeles] – Berggruen Institute Speaker Series is a new partnership between the UCLA Division of Humanities and the Berggruen Institute.
Please click here to register.
Please click here to submit a question to Alejandro Aravena
About Alejandro Aravena
Alejandro Aravena is an architect, founder and executive director of the firm Elemental. His works include the “Siamese Towers” at the Catholic University of Chile and the Novartis office campus in Shanghai. In 2016, the New York Times named Aravena one of the world’s “creative geniuses” who had helped define culture. He and Elemental have received numerous honors, including the 2016 Pritzker Architecture Prize, the 2015 London Design Museum’s Design of the Year award and the 2011 Index Award. Aravena currently serves as the president of the Pritzker Prize jury. Aravena’s lecture title, “How Will We Live Together?” echoes the theme of the upcoming international architecture exhibition, Biennale Architettura, in which Elemental will be participating.
Featuring a discussion with moderator Dana Cuff
Dana Cuff is Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at UCLA, where she is also Director of cityLAB, an award-winning think tank that advances goals of spatial justice through experimental urbanism and architecture (www.cityLAB.aud.ucla.edu). Since receiving her Ph.D. in Architecture from Berkeley, Cuff has published and lectured widely about affordable housing, the architectural profession, and Los Angeles’ urban history. She is author of several books, including The Provisional City about postwar housing in L.A., and a co-authored book called Urban Humanities: New Practices for Reimagining the City, documenting her collaborative, crossdisciplinary research and teaching at UCLA funded by the Mellon Foundation. Based on cityLAB’s design research, Cuff co-authored landmark legislation that permits “backyard homes” on some 8.1 million single-family properties, doubling the density of suburbs across California (AB 2299, Bloom-2016). In 2019, cityLAB opened a satellite center in the MacArthur Park/Westlake neighborhood where a deep, multi-year exchange with community organizations is already demonstrating ways that humanistic design of the public realm can create more compassionate cities. Cuff recently received three awards that describe her career: Women in Architecture Activist of the Year (2019, Architectural Record); Distinguished Leadership in Architectural Research (2020, ARCC); and Educator of the Year (2021, American Institute of Architects Los Angeles).
About the Series
Possible Worlds: The UCLA – Berggruen Institute Speaker Series is a new partnership between the UCLA Division of Humanities and the Berggruen Institute. This semiannual series will bring some of today’s most imaginative intellectual leaders and creators to deliver public talks on the future of humanity. Through the lens of their singular achievements and experiences, these trailblazers in creativity, innovation, philosophy and politics will lecture on provocative topics that explore current challenges and transformations in human progress.
UCLA faculty and students have long been at the forefront of interpreting the world’s legacy of language, literature, art and science. UCLA Humanities serves a vital role in readying future leaders to articulate their thoughts with clarity and imagination, to interpret the world of ideas, and to live as informed citizens in an increasingly complex world. We are proud to be partnering in this lecture series with the Berggruen Institute, whose work addresses the “Great Transformations” taking place in technology and culture, politics and economics, global power arrangements, and even how we perceive ourselves as humans. The Institute seeks to connect deep thought in the human sciences — philosophy and culture — to the pursuit of practical improvements in governance.
A selection committee comprising representatives of UCLA and the Berggruen Institute has been formed to make recommendations for lecturers. The committee includes:
• Ursula Heise, Professor and Chair, Department of English; Professor, UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability; Marcia H. Howard Term Chair in Literary Studies
• Pamela Hieronymi, Professor of Philosophy
• Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Professor of Urban Planning; Associate Provost for Academic Planning
• Todd Presner, Associate Dean, Digital Initiatives; Chair of the Digital Humanities Program; Michael and Irene Ross Endowed Chair of Yiddish Studies; Professor of Germanic Languages and Comparative Literature
• Lynn Vavreck, Professor, Department of Political Science; Marvin Hoffenberg Professor of American Politics and Public Policy
• David Schaberg, Senior Dean of the UCLA College; Dean of Humanities; Professor, Asian Languages & Cultures
• Nils Gilman, Vice President of Programs, the Berggruen Institute

Generative Art and Computational Creativity starts May 7, 2021

A Spring 2021 MetaCreation Lab (Simon Fraser University; SFU) newsletter (received via email on April 23, 2021) highlights a number of festival submissions and papers along with some news about a free introductory course. First, the video introduction to the course,

The Kadenze learning platform delivered through a partnership with Simon Fraser Universit offers more information about the Generative Art and Computational Creativity free introductory course webpage,

This first course in the two-part program, Generative Art and Computational Creativity [there’s a fee for part two], proposes an introduction and overview of the history and practice of generative arts and computational creativity with an emphasis on the formal paradigms and algorithms used for generation. The full program will be taught by Associate Professor from the School of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University and multi-disciplinary researcher, Philippe Pasquier.
On the technical side, we will study core techniques from mathematics, artificial intelligence, and artificial life that are used by artists, designers and musicians across the creative industry. We will start with processes involving chance operations, chaos theory and fractals and move on to see how stochastic processes, and rule-based approaches can be used to explore creative spaces. We will study agents and multi-agent systems and delve into cellular automata, and virtual ecosystems to explore their potential to create novel and valuable artifacts and aesthetic experiences.
The presentation is illustrated by numerous examples from past and current productions across creative practices such as visual art, new media, music, poetry, literature, performing arts, design, architecture, games, robot-art, bio-art and net-art. Students get to practice these algorithms first hand and develop new generative pieces through assignments and projects in MAX. Finally, the course addresses relevant philosophical, and societal debates associated with the automation of creative tasks.
Music for this course was composed with the StyleMachineLite Max for Live engine of Metacreative Inc.
Artistic direction: Philippe Pasquier, Programmation: Arne Eigenfeldt, Sound Production: Philippe Bertrand
Schedule
This course is in adaptive mode and is open for enrollment. Learn more about adaptive courses here.
Session 1: Introduction and Typology of Generative Art (May 7, 2021) To start off this course, we define generative art and computational creativity and discuss how these relate through the study of prominent examples. We establish a typology of generative systems based on levels of autonomy and agency.
Session 2: History Of Generative Art, Chance Operations, and Chaos Theory (May 14, 2021) Generative art is nothing new, and this session goes through the history of the field from pre-history to the popularization of computers. We study chance, noise, fractals, chaos theory, and their applications in visual art and music.
Session 3: Rule-Based Systems, Grammars and Markov Chains (May 21, 2021) This session introduces and illustrate the generative potential of rule-based and expert systems. We study generative grammars through the Chomsky hierarchy, and introduce L-systems, shape grammars, and Markov chains. We discuss how these have been applied in visual art, music, design, architecture, and electronic literature.
Session 4: Cognitive Agents And Multiagent Systems (May 28, 2021) This session introduces the concepts underlying the notion of artificial agents. We study the belief, desire, and intention (BDI) cognitive architecture, and message based agent communication resting on the speech act theory. We discuss musical agents, conversational agents, chat bots and twitter bots and their artistic potential.
Session 5: Reactive Agents And Multiagent Systems (June 4, 2021) In this session, we introduce reactive agents and the subsumption architecture. We study boids, and detail how complex behaviors can emerge from a distributed population of simple artificial agents. We look at a myriad of applications from ant painting to swarm music and we discuss artistic approaches to virtual ecosystems.
Session 6: A-Life And Cellular Automaton (June 11, 2021) In this concluding session, we introduce artificial life (A-life). We study cellular automaton, multi-agent ecosystems for music, visual art, non-photorealistic rendering, and gaming. The session also concludes the class by reflecting on the state of the art in the field and its consequences on creative practices.

If you go to the Generative Art and Computational Creativity free introductory course webpage, you’ll find each session is broken down into learning modules or what they used to call a lesson plan. The breakdowns are quite informative.

If you’re interested in the lab and its other projects, go to metacreationlab.net.

Architectural Portraits on May 13, 2021

From the May 2021 Dante Alighieri Society of British Columbia’s newsletter,

ARCHITECTURAL PORTRAITS:
EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BODY, DESIGN & THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
A talk by architect & photographer Oliviero Godi
(Politecnico di Milano)

Oliviero Godi-frantoio ipogeo nel Salent — Photo by Oliviero Godi – Frantoio Ipogeo nel Salento

THURSDAY, May 13, 2021
IN ENGLISH – ON ZOOM
at 5:00 pm (PST)
Admission:
FREE for the Dante Society’s members
$5 MINIMUM DONATION for non-members
Become a member! Annual membership $30.00 – See membership benefits here
RSVP
The human being – so fragile, so ethereal, speaking a sweet language. A piece of architecture – so physically imminent, so solid, speaking a language of hardness.
Photo by Oliviero Godi – Frantoio Ipogeo nel Salento
Join photographer & architect Oliviero Godi as he explores the relationship between the body & the material, the transient & the permanent, in search of the correct balance where neither element prevails.
Oliviero Godi’s Bio
To make your donation, please send an e-transfer to info@dantesocietybc.ca. Thank you!
Learn More [about this other upcoming Cultural Events]

Respiration and the Brain on May 25, 2021

Before getting to the April 29, 2021 BrainTalks announcement, here’s a little bit about BrainTalks from their webspace on the University of British Columbia (UBC) website,

BrainTalks is a series of talks inviting you to contemplate emerging research about the brain. Researchers studying the brain, from various disciplines including psychiatry, neuroscience, neuroimaging, and neurology, gather to discuss current leading edge topics on the mind.
As an audience member, you join the discussion at the end of the talk, both in the presence of the entire audience, and with an opportunity afterwards to talk with the speaker more informally in a catered networking session. The talks also serve as a connecting place for those interested in similar topics, potentially launching new endeavours or simply connecting people in discussions on how to approach their research, their knowledge, or their clinical practice.
For the general public, these talks serve as a channel where by knowledge usually sequestered in inaccessible journals or university classrooms, is now available, potentially allowing people to better understand their brains and minds, how they work, and how to optimize brain health.
[UBC School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry]

Onto the April 29, 2021 BrainTalks announcement (received via email),

BrainTalks: Respiration and the Brain
Tuesday, May 25th, 2021 from 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM [PT]
Join us for a series of online talks exploring questions of respiration and the brain. Emerging empirical research will be presented on ventilation-associated brain injury and breathing-based interventions for the treatment of stress and anxiety disorders. We presenters will include Dr. Thiago Bassi, Dr. Lloyd Lalande and Taylor Willi, MSc.
Dr. Thiago Bassi will address the biological connection between the brain and lungs, exploring the potential adverse effects of mechanical ventilation on the brain. Dr. Bassi is a neurosurgeon and neuroscientist, who worked clinically for more than ten years in Brazil. He joined the Lungpacer Medical team and C2B2 lab in 2017, and is currently completing his doctorate in Biomedicine Physiology at Simon Fraser University.
Dr. Lloyd Lalande will describe Guided Respiration Mindfulness Therapy (GRMT), as an emerging clinical breathwork intervention for its effectiveness in reducing depression, anxiety and stress, and in increasing mindfulness and sense of wellbeing. Dr. Lalonde is an Assistant Professor teaching psychology at the Buddhist TzuChi University of Science and Technology, and the developer of GRMT. His current research is based out of the TzuChi Buddhist General Hospital, investigating GRMT as an evidence-based treatment for a variety of outcomes.
Mr. Taylor Willi will present the findings of his dissertation research comparing the effect of performing daily brief relaxation techniques on measures of stress and anxiety. Mr. Willi completed a Masters Degree of Neuroscience at the University of British Columbia, and is currently completing his doctorate in Clinical Psychology at Simon Fraser University.
Each of the speakers will present an overview of their research findings investigating respiration in three unique ways. Following their presentations, the speakers will be available for an audience-drive panel discussion.
We look forward to seeing you there~*
Get Tickets

They don’t mention COVID-19 but given that seriously ill patients with the disease are routinely placed on ventilators, it is almost certainly going to be mentioned in the presentations.

That’s all folks (at least for now).

UNESCO’s Call for Proposals to highlight blind spots in AI Development open ’til May 2, 2021

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I think the French title for this call is more informative “L’UNESCO et Mila s’associent pour lancer un appel à publications afin de mettre en lumière les faiblesses du développement de l’IA [l’intelligence artificiel].” Here’s my translation (in advance, apologies to all who find it clumsy), ‘UNESCO {United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) and MILA (Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms) are issuing a joint call for papers illuminating weaknesses in the development of artificial intelligence.

From UNESCO’s Call for Proposals to highlight blind spots in AI Development webpage (in English),

UNESCO in cooperation with Mila-Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute [?], is launching a Call for Proposals to identify blind spots in AI Policy and Programme Development. The collective work will explore creative, novel and far-reaching approaches to tackling blind spots in AI.
All contributors are invited to answer the same question: what are the blind spots on which we must shed light in order for AI to benefit all?
Issues can address 1) blind spots in the development of AI as a technology 2) blind spots in the development of AI as a sector, and 3) blind spots in the development of public policies, global governance, and regulation for AI. There are no limits to the subjects to be addressed. These blind spots could include issues ranging from science fiction and the future of AI, creative deep fakes and the future of misinformation, AI and the future of data driven humanitarian aid, indigenous knowledge and AI, and gender-based violence and sex robots. Proposals can be in creative formats, and the call for proposals is open to individuals from all academic backgrounds and sectors. Proposals from all stakeholder groups, particularly marginalized and underrepresented groups, are encouraged, as well as proposals from authors from the global south and innovative formats (artwork, cartoons, videos, etc).
Call for proposals are open until 2 May 2021.
Selected proposals will be confirmed by 25 May.
Final proposals, if in written format, should be between 5000-7000 words and should be written in a style that is accessible to non-AI specialists and received by 1 September 2021.
To ensure inclusivity and a diversity of voices, for accepted contributions outside of academia, authors may request financial support available on a needs-based basis up to 1000 usd.

I really appreciate the breadth of the call with a range of blind spots such as “science fiction and the future of AI, creative deep fakes and the future of misinformation, AI and the future of data driven humanitarian aid, indigenous knowledge and AI, and gender-based violence and sex robots” and, presumably, anything the convenors had not considered.

As well, they haven’t confined themselves to the ‘same old, same old’ contributors, “all stakeholder groups, particularly marginalized and underrepresented groups, are encouraged, as well as proposals from authors from the global south and innovative formats (artwork, cartoons, videos, etc).”

I’m glad to see a refreshing approach being taken to a call for proposals. I wish them good luck.

The Québec connection

Mila (Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms), UNESCO’s co-host for this call, was founded in 1993 according to its About Mila page,

Founded in 1993 by Professor Yoshua Bengio of the Université de Montréal, Mila is a research institute in artificial intelligence that rallies over 500 researchers specializing in the field of machine learning. Based in Montreal, Mila’s mission is to be a global pole for scientific advances that inspire innovation and the development of AI for the benefit of all.
Since 2017, [emphasis mine] Mila is the result of a partnership between the Université de Montréal and McGill University, closely linked with Polytechnique Montréal and HEC Montréal. Today, Mila gathers in its offices a vibrant community of professors, students, industrial partners and startups working in AI, making the institute the world’s largest academic research center in machine learning.
Mila, a non-profit organization, is internationally recognized for its significant contributions to machine learning, especially in the areas of language modelling, machine translation, object recognition and generative models.

Unmentioned, the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy was created and funded by the Canadian federal government in 2017. One of the beneficiaries was Mila. (Odd how 2017 was the year Mila found so many academic partners in its home province.) From the Pan-Canadian AI strategy webpage on the Invest Canada website (Note: Links have been removed),

The artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning revolution is well underway, and Canada is at its forefront. From top-ranked educational institutions and market-leading tech companies to world-renowned researchers, Canada’s AI ecosystems are leading global AI developments.
To continue to foster this growth and maintain its leadership position, Canada launched the $125M Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy in 2017—making it the first country to release a national AI strategy.
…
The Pan-Canadian AI Strategy is founded on a partnership between the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) and the three centres of excellence: the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (AMII) in Edmonton, the Vector Institute in Toronto, and the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms (Mila) [all emphases mine] in Montreal. Together, they provide the support, resources, and talent for AI innovation and investment.

I don’t know where “Mila-Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute” comes from. It’s not on their own website and I’ve never seen Mila called that anywhere other than on this UNESCO call.

Little Lost Robot and humane visions of our technological future

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I stumbled across the Little Lost Robot website courtesy of someone (I apologize for not noting who it was) on my Twitter feed. It caught my eye as the approach to the possibilities of an increasingly robotic future is more hopeful than most I’ve seen and most of the ones I’ve featured here.

Here’s what they’re all about from the Little Lost Robot website,

About
Little Lost Robot is a new CIC [community interest company] founded by Artists Ruby Jennings and Joseph Wilk. Coming from contrasting artistic backgrounds their skills are wide ranging – from structural set design to creative coding. They use technology to create a vision of the future that is non-slick, human centric and gloriously humane in all its messy domestic parts.
…
Leviathan
A piece of work discussing our relationship as individuals with our ideas of the future world and our place in it. Leviathan is a moving, reactive, breathing object created from inorganic materials.
Leviathan challenges our relationship with the unknown and tendency to create monsters mirroring our own fears. Any technology sufficiently complex and disruptive to our social norms has lead to us to create those same robotic monsters of the unknown. While there is much to be concerned about in Robotics and its effects on society, understanding, ownership and transparency are they way to begin the debate and see the monster for what it is and our relationship with it. Robotics is a highly technical and academic field, heavily rooted in car automation and high cost, dangerous machines. Leviathan brings the mechanics of the robot but makes them soft and tangible. The expression of the human in puppetry, challenging our relationship with something that is both machine yet animal, industrial yet social. The alchemy of computing in responsiveness and behaviour and the history of our relationship with our planet and its animals through the reclaimed, recycled materials it is constructed from.
…
Stupid Cities
“Stupid Cities aims to improve the social equality of our cities by using placemaking tools to highlight how their current design creates disability. This project is a scream and shout about the barrage of times wheelchair users are told they do not belong in public spaces. Having to risk personal safety to try move around badly designed cities. How our digital route finding and placemaking tools ignore important factors for wheel-based transportation like gradient, obstacles, surface roughness, undipped curbs, narrow pavements, parked cars, stairs, etc. Environments full of micro-aggressions stop people engaging in society.”
Our goal is to create tools to empower, connect allies to share & create visibility for world wide change.

For anyone unfamiliar with the concept of a community interest company (CIC), Wikipedia offers this description (Note: Links have been removed),

A community interest company (CIC) is a type of company introduced by the United Kingdom government in 2005 under the Companies (Audit, Investigations and Community Enterprise) Act 2004, designed for social enterprises that want to use their profits and assets for the public good.^[1] CICs are intended to be easy to set up, with all the flexibility and certainty of the company form, but with some special features to ensure they are working for the benefit of the community. They are overseen by the Regulator of Community Interest Companies.
CICs have proved popular and some 10,000 were registered in the status’s first ten years.^[2]

Getting back to Little Last Robot,

You can find this image and more on the Little Lost Robot blog.

Canada launches its AI dialogues

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Before launching into my critique, here’s the news about Canada’s artificial intelligence (AI) dialogues as I found it on the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) AI dialogues event page,

Open Dialogue:
Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Canada
Tell us what you think about Artificial Intelligence (AI).
March 30-April 30, 2021
The Government of Canada’s Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence Public Awareness Working Group is hosting regional virtual workshops to hear what you and members of your community think about AI.
These workshops will inform recommendations to the Government of Canada on how to boost public awareness of and foster trust in AI. The conversations will be grounded in an understanding of the technology, its potential uses, and its associated risks.
Each workshop is approximately 2.5 hrs in length and free to attend. Our goal is to engage more than 1,000 people across Canada, building on the results of a national survey that was conducted in December 2020.
What to expect
Opening plenary session (15 min)
Breakout session with 6-10 participants
BREAK (10 minutes)
Recommendations (40 min)
Closing remarks ( 8 min)
Closing plenary Session (22 min)

Registration

Oddly, there’s isn’t a registration link from the event page, you have to click on one of two (Regional or Youth) workshop tabs at the top of the page (this is from the Regional Workshops webpage),

Join us for a virtual workshop taking place in your region. Each workshop will include facilitated discussions based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) scenarios and provide an opportunity to share your views on AI.
To register by phone, please call Grace at 416-971-6937. If you require accommodations to participate, please contact events@cifar.ca.

The regions are split into the West (Pacific and Mountain time zones), Central (Central and Ontario time zones), and East (Newfoundland, Atlantic and Quebec time zones). There are French and English sessions in each of the three regions and they have included the North on the regional maps.

Questions

Sadly, the events team at CIFAR did not answer questions (I tried twice) nor did Julian Posada who is apparently the facilitator for the workshops,

During Spring 2021, I will be a visiting fellow at the Weizenbaum Institute where I will be associated with the Criticality of AI-based Systems research group. During the same period, I will be a facilitator for the public workshops organized by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada where Canadians will be asked about their perceptions towards artificial intelligence and AI systems.

He’s also a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto.

Note Posada has identified Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) as the workshop organizer but it’s not listed on CIFAR’s Open Dialogue: Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Canada event page as an organizer or even one of the partners. There is this (from the event page),

The Government of Canada’s Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence Public Awareness Working Group includes representatives from: AI Global | AI Network of BC | Amii | Brookfield Institute | Canadian Chamber of Commerce | CIFAR | DeepSense/Dalhousie | Glassbox | Ivado | Kids Code Jeunesse | Let’s Talk Science | Mila | Saskinteractive | Université de Montréal

The partners, represented by logos, are the Government of Canada (as in Advisory Committee?), Algora Lab, Université de Montréal, CIFAR, and for the Youth Workshops, Let’s Talk Science, Kids Code Jeunesse, and workshop materials are being provided by the Canadian Commission for UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).

Everything makes more sense when you look at the Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence webpage where you’ll see its an ISED committee.

Finally the questions

By the third time, I’d reworded a few things and added one or two question so, here’s the final list as sent to Julian Posada on Thursday, March 18, 2021,

(1) I understand it’s a joint CIFAR/Government of Canada Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence Public Awareness Working Group workshop series called Open Dialogue: Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Canada, is that correct and the series will be held from March 30 – April 30, 2021?
(2) Are regular folks invited to join in or is this primarily for academics, business people, entrepreneurs, AI researchers, and other cognoscenti?
(3) Will a distinction be made between AI and robots?
(4) Are you facilitating all of the planned workshops? Will you also have assigned leaders for the breakout groups or will that be decided amongst the participants? If leaders are assigned, who are they?
(5) What do you have planned for your workshop(s)? e.g., Will participants be presented with various scenarios for discussion in the breakout groups? Or will participants be given specific topics to discuss, such as AI in the military? AI in senior’s facilities (e.g., social or companion robots for seniors? etc.
(6) Are the workshops being conducted over Zoom and is a Zoom account required for participation? Is there an alternative technology being used?
(7) Will AI be used to review and analyze the sessions and data gathered?
(8) Are there security measures in place for the session and for the data, specifically, participants’ personal data given up during registration?
(9) Will participants get a copy of the report afterwards or notified when it’s made available?

Since the workshops start on March 30, 2021 and I’m sure everyone’s busy and not able to spare time for questions, I’ve elected to publish what i can about the workshops despite a few misgivings.

Critique

I’m glad to see this initiative and to note that the North is included. It would be interesting to learn how these workshops have been publicized (I stumbled across them in a retweet of Julian Posada’s announcement on my Twitter feed). However, it’s not vital.

Priorities for the Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence

Much more interesting to me is the purpose of these workshops. Yes, it’s a ‘dialogue’ on the CIFAR event page but the purpose for the Government of Canada’s Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence would seem to be ‘public awareness’,

Artificial intelligence (AI) represents a set of complex and powerful technologies that will touch or transform every sector and industry. It has the power to help us address some of our most challenging problems in areas like health and the environment, and to introduce new sources of sustainable economic growth. As a digital nation, Canada is taking steps to harness the potential of AI.
As announced by the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development on May 14, 2019, the Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence will advise the Government of Canada on building Canada’s strengths and global leadership in AI, identifying opportunities to create economic growth that benefits all Canadians, and ensuring that AI advancements reflect Canadian’ values. The Advisory Council will be a central reference point to draw on leading AI experts from Canadian industry, civil society, academia, and government.
Public Awareness Working Group
Recognizing the importance of a two-way dialogue with the Canadian public on AI, the Advisory Council launched a working group dedicated to public awareness in 2020. The Public Awareness Working Group is looking at mechanisms to boost public awareness and foster trust in AI. It also aims to ground the Canadian discussion in a measured understanding of AI technology, its potential uses, and its associated risks.
Commercialization Working Group
Recognizing that Canada has an imperative to commercialize its AI, and to capitalize on existing Canadian advantages in research and talent, the Advisory Council launched a working group dedicated to commercialization in August 2019 [emphasis mine]. The Commercialization Working Group explored ways to translate Canadian-owned artificial intelligence into economic growth that includes higher business productivity and benefits for Canadians.

The first order of business was commercialization in August 2019 and that’s to be expected given that this is ISED. The Public Awareness Working Group was launched at least four months after.

Priorities, eh?

Is awareness a dialogue?

As they very nicely note on the CIFAR AI dialogue event page, these workshops are going to help the government figure out “how to boost public awareness of and foster trust in AI.” It’s very flattering to be consulted this way.

So to sum this up, the ‘dialogue’ in the regional and youth workshops will be mined for ideas on how to boost public awareness and foster trust. You’re not really just getting an opportunity “to share your views on AI,” are you?

It seems a bit narrow but then they’ve already conducted a survey in December 2020, which has in all likelihood informed the content for these workshops and they have . Plus the workshop materials being provided by the Canadian Commission for UNESCO have in all likelihood been used elsewhere and repackaged for the Canadian market.

Hmmm I wouldn’t call this an ‘open dialogue’ since so much has already been done to frame it.

Abattoirs

Many years ago I read a fascinating article about Temple Grandin and her work redesigning abattoirs (slaughterhouses) to make them more humane. I don’t remember much about it but calming the cattle by dampening the noise while distracting them a little by making them move around rather then directly leading them to their deaths seemed the key elements to the redesign.

This ‘open dialogue’ reminds me of the article. The outcome is predetermined and we’re being distracted in the nicest way possible.

Mining the data?

Nine workshop sessions in total with one hour and 40 minutes (rough estimate) of discussion and recommendations for each session. That’s roughly 15 hours of material from the dialogues and recommendations to analyze.

Remember this question “(7) Will AI be used to review and analyze the sessions and data gathered?”

It’s hard to believe that CIFAR and its partners don’t have a system that could do the job or, at the very least, a system that could learn from the sessions.

Not necessarily evil

While I have a number of misgivings about these ‘dialogues’, I don’t expect that most of the people involved are trying to be nefarious. There are probably some good intentions (you know where those take you, yes?) but the overarching purpose here is commercialization which is made much easier with universal acceptance. (awareness + trust)

To be blunt, a dialogue with a predetermined outcome seems more like a script to me than an open conversation.

This sort of thing has been called a ‘public consultation’ but that term has gotten a bad reputation as it was used to disguise the kind of manipulation that I suspect is going on with this effort.

How they expect to foster trust in circumstances that are not conducive to that is a bit of a mystery to me. Plus, I have to wonder if these organizers or committee members have taken into the possible aftereffects of one of the great Canadian government debacles.

Phoenix pay system

It has its own entry on Wikipedia (Note: Links have been removed),

The Phoenix pay system is a payroll processing system for Canadian federal government employees, provided by IBM in June 2011 using PeopleSoft software, and run by Public Services and Procurement Canada. The Public Service Pay Centre is located in Miramichi, New Brunswick. It was first introduced in 2009 as part of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Transformation of Pay Administration Initiative, intended to replace Canada’s 40-year old system with a new, cost-saving “automated, off-the-shelf commercial system.” By July 2018, Phoenix has caused pay problems to close to 80 percent of the federal government’s 290,000 public servants through underpayments, over-payments, and non-payments.^[1] The Standing Senate Committee on National Finance, chaired by Senator Percy Mockler, investigated the Phoenix Pay system and submitted their report, “The Phoenix Pay Problem: Working Towards a Solution” on July 31, 2018, in which they called Phoenix a failure and an “international embarrassment”.^[1] Instead of saving $70 million a year as planned, the report said that the cost to taxpayers to fix Phoenix’s problems could reach a total of $2.2 billion by 2023. [emphasis mine]
…

The entry leaves out a couple of details. Yes, Harper’s government nurtured this disaster but it was (1) Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his (2) Liberal government who implemented the system in February 2016. Whoever wrote this entry is very friendly to the Liberals so I don’t think the politicians were quite as uninformed as represented in the entry.

As for the cost to taxpayers, I think $2.2 billion by 2023 is an over modest estimate. For comparison, Australia’s Queensland Health Authority also had a pay system debacle. It was the same vendor (IBM) and, in 2013, the estimate to fix the problems was $1.2 billion Australian dollars (see this Dec.11.13 article by Robert N. Charette for the IEEE Spectrum or this Aug.7.13 article by Michael Madigan, Sarah Vogler, and Greg Stolz for The Courier Mail).

Note 1: I checked on a currency converter today (March 23, 2021) and $1 CAD = $1.04 AUS.

Note 2: For anyone unfamiliar with the organization, IEEE is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

I’m pretty sure $2.2 billion (which I think is an underestimate) does not include the human costs (anxiety, alcohol abuse, self-harm, suicide, etc.).

Plus

The situation was exacerbated as Catharine Tunney wrote in a February 18, 2020 article for CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) online (Note: A link has been removed),

More than 69,000 public servants caught up in the Phoenix pay system debacle are now victims of a privacy breach after their personal information was accidentally emailed to the wrong people, says Public Services and Procurement Canada.
The problem-plagued electronic payroll system has improperly paid tens of thousands of public servants since its launch in 2016. Some employees have gone months with little or no pay, while others have been overpaid, sometimes for months at a time.
…
Earlier this month, a report naming 69,087 public servants was accidentally emailed to the wrong federal departments.
The report included the employees’ full names, their personal record identifier numbers, home addresses and overpayment amounts.
More than 161 chief financial officers and 62 heads of HR in 62 departments received the report in error, according to a statement posted to Public Services and Procurement Canada’s website on Monday.
…
Public Services and Procurement Canada isn’t the only department to accidentally breach the confidentiality of workers’ personal information.
According to figures recently tabled in the House of Commons, federal departments or agencies mishandled personal information belonging to 144,000 Canadians over the past two years.
Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien has long called out “strong indications of systemic under-reporting” of privacy breaches across government.

Final comments

Overhauling the government payroll system is not the same as introducing new artificial intelligence systems but the problem is that many of the same people in the upper echelons of Canada’s civil service (government employees) were and are instrumental in the deployment of these systems.

“Phoenix pay system an ‘incomprehensible failure,’ Auditor-General says” was the headline for a May 29, 2018 article by Michelle Zilio for the Globe and Mail. I might feel more trust if after the report, there’d been signs that things had changed. However, the government is still highly secretive and we have a ‘dialogue’ with a predetermined outcome (just like the public consultations of yesteryear).

As for M. Posada, the facilitator for one or more of the workshops, he seems relatively new to Canada (scroll down his University of Toronto profile page and click on Degrees),

M.A., Economic Sociology – School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) [École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris, France]
B.A., Humanities – Sorbonne University [also in Paris]

As I noted in my December 10, 2021 posting where a chapter on science communication in Canada where two of the three authors were from other countries (Brazil and Australia), outsider perspectives can be quite valuable. (Both of the authors spent some time in Canada. At least one of them had taught here.)

In any event, I have to wonder how well he’s been briefed.

After my experience in something called “participatory budgeting” (City of Vancouver, 2019), where citizens were asked come together and decide how to spend $100,000 of the city budget in our neighbourhood, A surprising number of city employees were involved as ‘members’ of the working groups and ,of course, other employees at City Hall had veto power over what was eventually presented to the community for voting. I can say that at the end of the process I felt used.

It could be interesting but I warn against any high expectations if you’re looking for genuine dialogue. You can click through to registration from the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) AI dialogues event page, choose either the Regional Workshops or Youth Workshops from the tabs at the top of the page.

Genius Makers, a history of AI, book launch on March 15, 2021

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“Genius Makers: The Mavericks Who Brought AI to Google, Facebook, and the World” is being released on March 16, 2021.

The day before the book’s release date, March 15, 2021 at 12 pm, author Cade Metz will be having a ‘fireside chat’ with Graham Taylor, associate professor at the University of Guelph and Canada CIFAR (Canadian Institute for Advanced Research) AI (artificial intelligence) chair and Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence at the University of Toronto faculty member, (Preregistration for the event will make you eligible for a prize draw, if you’re a Canadian resident.)

The curious can find out more about the Vector Institute in my March 31, 2017 posting about its inception.

Here are the ‘fireside chat’ details, from the Vector Institute’s Genius Makers event page,

Join author and New York Times technology writer Cade Metz and Canada CIFAR AI chair and Vector Institute faculty member Graham Taylor for a dynamic ‘virtual fireside’ discussion that explores the past, present and future of AI.
Vector Institute is proud to host this special event marking the launch of Metz’s new book, GENIUS MAKERS, which traces the thrilling history of artificial intelligence – including the mavericks who brought AI to leading companies and the world. Together, Metz and Taylor will explore the inspiration for writing the book, the experience of interviewing the trailblazers who have shaped the thrilling and still-unfolding evolution of AI and the challenges and opportunities ahead in Canada and beyond.
AI innovators, researchers, business leaders, policymakers and enthusiasts alike will benefit from new perspectives on unlocking the transformative potential of AI while balancing issues of national interests, shareholder value, commercialization, the pursuit of scientific knowledge and concerns about privacy and bias – and more.
An audience Q&A session will follow the discussion.
Agenda:
12 noon: Welcome and opening
12:05-12:40: Discussion, Cade Metz & Graham Taylor
12:40-12:55: Q&A Session
12:55-1pm: Wrap-up
REGISTER EARLY FOR A CHANCE TO WIN
Those who pre-register by Sunday, March 14, 2021, 11:59pmET are eligible to be entered in a draw for one of two complimentary copies of Genius Makers by Cade Metz. Draw to be held by 6pm ET on March 15; winners will be notified by email. Open to Canadian residents only.
Register

The description for Metz’s book (Genius Makers: The Mavericks Who Brought AI to Google, Facebook, and the World) is interesting, I gather Dutton is the imprint under which Penguin Random House is publishing Metz’s book,

THE UNTOLD TECH STORY OF OUR TIME
What does it mean to be smart? To be human? What do we really want from life and the intelligence we have, or might create?
With deep and exclusive reporting, across hundreds of interviews, New York Times Silicon Valley journalist Cade Metz brings you into the rooms where these questions are being answered. Where an extraordinarily powerful new artificial intelligence has been built into our biggest companies, our social discourse, and our daily lives, with few of us even noticing.
Long dismissed as a technology of the distant future, artificial intelligence was a project consigned to the fringes of the scientific community. Then two researchers changed everything. One was a sixty-four-year-old computer science professor who didn’t drive and didn’t fly because he could no longer sit down—but still made his way across North America for the moment that would define a new age of technology. The other was a thirty-six-year-old neuroscientist and chess prodigy who laid claim to being the greatest game player of all time before vowing to build a machine that could do anything the human brain could do.
They took two very different paths to that lofty goal, and they disagreed on how quickly it would arrive. But both were soon drawn into the heart of the tech industry. Their ideas drove a new kind of arms race, spanning Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and OpenAI, a new lab founded by Silicon Valley kingpin Elon Musk. But some believed that China would beat them all to the finish line.
Genius Makers dramatically presents the fierce conflict between national interests, shareholder value, the pursuit of scientific knowledge, and the very human concerns about privacy, security, bias, and prejudice. Like a great Victorian novel, this world of eccentric, brilliant, often unimaginably yet suddenly wealthy characters draws you into the most profound moral questions we can ask. And like a great mystery, it presents the story and facts that lead to a core, vital question:
How far will we let it go?

Let me understand this: two men will be discussing how two men developed the current artificial intelligence scene and the titanic struggle taking place. Between US companies and between the US and China. (pause)

That’s certainly one way to look at it.

It seems odd that there’d be a ‘Canadian’ book launch, unless you consider this from my March 31, 2017 posting about the Vector Institute,

… Geoffrey Hinton, considered the “godfather” of deep learning for the breakthroughs he made while a professor at U of T, has worked for Google since 2013 in California and Toronto

I’m guessing Hinton might be one of Metz’s ‘genius makers’.

By the way, Hinton’s longest running academic association is with the University of Toronto (professor from 1987 – 98, 2001 – present).

FrogHeart

Commentary about nanotech, science policy and communication, society, and the arts

Category Archives: public engagement

“Our climate is changing too fast for forests to adapt. Can we help them?” at Simon Fraser University (SFU) Café Scientifique on October 28, 202 from 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm PDT + Nov. event

Coming up in November 2021

COVID-19 science communications and recommendations for improvement

Final comments

Human genome editing and some difficult conversations

Science and art/sci events during May 2021

Proximal Spaces on May 3, 2021

Morphogenesis: Geometry, Physics, and Biology on May 5, 2021

Possible Worlds: “How Will We Live Together?” on May 6, 2021

Generative Art and Computational Creativity starts May 7, 2021

Architectural Portraits on May 13, 2021

Respiration and the Brain on May 25, 2021

UNESCO’s Call for Proposals to highlight blind spots in AI Development open ’til May 2, 2021

The Québec connection

Little Lost Robot and humane visions of our technological future

Canada launches its AI dialogues

Registration

Questions

Finally the questions

Critique

Priorities for the Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence

Is awareness a dialogue?

Abattoirs

Mining the data?

Not necessarily evil

Phoenix pay system

Plus

Final comments

Genius Makers, a history of AI, book launch on March 15, 2021

Coming up in November 2021

Final comments

A request for volunteer participants for a social robot survey

Are my responses truly anonymous?

Two SOCRATES?

Where are the older adults and ‘co-creation opportunities’?

Blind spot: when do you think the internet was invented?

The stereotype that almost all older adults are technologically/digitally illiterate

Is loneliness in older people different than loneliness in youth?

Final thoughts

More reading

Proximal Spaces on May 3, 2021

Morphogenesis: Geometry, Physics, and Biology on May 5, 2021

Possible Worlds: “How Will We Live Together?” on May 6, 2021

Generative Art and Computational Creativity starts May 7, 2021

Architectural Portraits on May 13, 2021

Respiration and the Brain on May 25, 2021

The Québec connection

Registration

Questions

Finally the questions

Critique

Priorities for the Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence

Is awareness a dialogue?

Abattoirs

Mining the data?

Not necessarily evil

Phoenix pay system

Plus

Final comments