We Robot Authors: Day Two – April 2nd

We Robot 2016 is rooted in contributions by academics, practitioners, and others in the form of scholarly papers or demonstrations of technology or other projects. These presentations explore the increasing sophistication and decision-making capabilities of robots, which disrupts existing legal regimes or requires rethinking of various policy issues. 

Aurelia Tamò and Christoph Lutz will join We Robot 2016 to present their paper Privacy and Healthcare Robots – An ANT Analysis on Saturday, April 2nd at 8:30 AM at the University of Miami Newman Alumni Center in Coral Gables, Florida. Aurelia Tamò is a PhD student at the Chair for Information and Communication Law at the University of Zurich. She is a guest researcher at the Institute for Pervasive Computing at ETH Zurich and at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. In her PhD research project Aurelia analyzes technical measures and designs for data protection. For her research she was granted a Doc.CH scholarship by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Her overall research interests include various topics within the interdisciplinary field of law and technology such as privacy or copyright and regulatory developments in these fields. More recently she became interested in robotics and the impact of in particular social robots on the current social and ethical structures. Aurelia has a background in law and economics and holds a Master degree from the University of St. Gallen. Aurelia’s publications can be found on ResearchGate. Tweets via @a_a_tamo.

Christoph Lutz is a researcher in the field of new communication technologies and social media. In 2015, he obtained his PhD from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, with a cumulative dissertation on online participation and participation divides in Germany. In the same year, he worked as a visiting scholar at the Oxford Internet Institute. As of 2016, Christoph is assistant professor at BI Norwegian Business School and senior researcher at the University of Leipzig. Christoph has a background in sociology, economics and media science. His research interests include privacy; social media, especially in science, politics and public administration; trust; serendipity; and social robots. Christoph has published in leading new media, Internet and information systems journals (JMIS, JASIST, Information Communication & Society, International Journal of Communication, Social Media & Society etc.) and presented at various conferences and workshops (AOM, ICA, ACM Webscience etc.). More information about Christoph can be found on ResearchGate, Google Scholar and Twitter (@lutzid)

Aaron Mannes will join We Robot 2016 to present his paper Institutional Options for Robot Governance on Saturday, April 2nd at 10:00 AM at the University of Miami Newman Alumni Center in Coral Gables, Florida. Dr. Aaron Mannes is an American Association for the Advancement of Science Technology Policy Fellow with the Apex Data Analytics Engine at the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency. Dr. Mannes earned his Ph.D. at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy in 2014. His dissertation topic was the evolving national security role of the vice president. From 2004 to 2015 Dr. Mannes was a researcher at the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS) where he was the subject matter expert on terrorism and international affairs collaborating with a team of inter-disciplinary scientists to build computational tools to support decision-makers facing 21st century security and development problems. At UMIACS Dr. Mannes co-authored numerous papers and two books on using computational tools to understand and counter terrorism. Dr. Mannes is the author of Profiles in Terror: The Guide to Middle East Terrorist Organizations (Rowman & Littlefield 2004), and has written scores of articles, papers, and book chapters on an array of topics including Middle East affairs, terrorism, technology, and other international security issues for popular and scholarly publications including Politico, Policy Review, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, The Journal of International Security Affairs, The Huffington Post, The National Interest, The Jerusalem Post, and The Guardian. Dr. Mannes can be reached through his website www.aaronmannes.com

Peter Asaro will join We Robot 2016 to present his paper Will #BlackLivesMatter to RoboCop? on Saturday, April 2nd at 11:30 AM at the University of Miami Newman Alumni Center in Coral Gables, Florida. Dr. Peter Asaro is a philosopher of science, technology and media. His work examines artificial intelligence and robotics as a form of digital media, and the ways in which technology mediates social relations and shapes our experience of the world. His current research focuses on the social, cultural, political, legal and ethical dimensions of military robotics and UAV drones, from a perspective that combines media theory with science and technology studies. He has written widely-cited papers on lethal robotics from the perspective of just war theory and human rights. Dr. Asaro’s research also examines agency and autonomy, liability and punishment, and privacy and surveillance as it applies to consumer robots, industrial automation, smart buildings, and autonomous vehicles. His research has been published in international peer reviewed journals and edited volumes, and he is currently writing a book that interrogates the intersections between advanced robotics, and social and ethical issues. Dr. Asaro has held research positions at the Center for Cultural Analysis at Rutgers University, the HUMlab of Umeå University in Sweden, and the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. He has also developed technologies in the areas of virtual reality, data visualization and sonification, human-computer interaction, computer-supported cooperative work, artificial intelligence, machine learning, robot vision, and neuromorphic robotics at the National Center for Supercomputer Applications (NCSA), the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, and Iguana Robotics, Inc., and was involved in the design of the natural language interface for the Wolfram|Alpha computational knowledge engine forWolfram Research–this interface is also used by Apple’s Siri and Microsoft’s Bing to answer math queries, and won two 2010 SXSW Web Interactive Awards for Technical Achievement and Best of Show. He is completing an Oral History of Robotics project that is funded by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and the National Endowment for the Humanities Office of Digital Humanities. He has also just initiated a new three-year project on Regulating Autonomous Artificial Agents: A Systematic Approach to Developing AI & Robot Policy, funded by the Future of Life Institute. Dr. Asaro received his PhD in the History, Philosophy and Sociology of Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he also earned a Master of Arts from the Department of Philosophy, and a Master of Computer Science from the Department of Computer Science.

Helen Norton and Toni Massaro will join We Robot 2016 to present their paper Siriously? Free Speech Rights for Artificial Intelligence on Saturday, April 2nd at 3:15 PM at the University of Miami Newman Alumni Center in Coral Gables, Florida. Helen Norton joined the Colorado Law faculty in 2007, after earlier serving as a visiting professor at the University of Maryland School of Law and as the E. George Rudolph Distinguished Visiting Chair at the University of Wyoming College of Law. Her scholarly and teaching interests include constitutional law, civil rights, and employment discrimination law; she has been honored with the Excellence in Teaching Award on multiple occasions and was appointed a University of Colorado Presidential Teaching Scholar in 2014. She served as leader of President-elect Obama’s transition team charged with reviewing the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2008, and is frequently invited to testify before Congress and federal agencies on civil rights law and policy issues. Before entering academia, Professor Norton served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice, where she managed the Civil Rights Division’s Employment Litigation, Educational Opportunities, and Coordination and Review Sections, and as Director of Legal and Public Policy at the National Partnership for Women & Families, where she practiced appellate litigation and engaged in administrative and legislative advocacy on a range of employment and civil rights matters. She holds a J.D. from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley, where she served as Associate Editor of the California Law Review, and a B.A. from Stanford University, where she graduated with distinction.

Professor Toni Massaro received her B.S. degree, with highest distinction, from Northwestern University. She obtained her law degree from the College of William and Mary, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the William and Mary Law Review. Massaro was in private practice in Chicago with Vedder, Price, Kaufman and Kammholz. She also has taught at Washington and Lee University, Stanford University, UNC-Chapel Hill, and the University of Florida. Prof. Massaro joined the faculty at the University of Arizona College of Law in 1989. Since 1997, she has been the Milton O. Riepe Chair in Constitutional Law. In 2006, she was named a Regent’s Professor by the Arizona Board of Regents. From 1999 – 2009, she served as Dean of the College of Law, the first woman to hold that post. Prof. Massaro is the author of The Arc of Due Process in American Constitutional Law (with E. Thomas Sullivan), Constitutional Literacy:  A Core Curriculum for a Multicultural Nation, and Civil Procedure:  Cases and Problems (with Barbara Allen Babcock and Norman Spaulding). She also is the author of dozens of law review articles on constitutional law, shame penalties, and law and emotion. She currently teaches Constitutional Law I, First Amendment, and Equal Protection. Prof. Massaro is an eight time recipient of the Teacher of the Year Award.

William D. Smart will join We Robot 2016 to present his paper What do We Really Know About Robots and the Law? on Saturday, April 2nd at 4:30 PM at the University of Miami Newman Alumni Center in Coral Gables, Florida. Bill Smart is an Associate Professor at Oregon State University, where he co-directs the Robotics program.  He holds a Ph.D. and Sc.M. in Computer Science from Brown University, an M.Sc. in Intelligent Robotics from the University of Edinburgh, and a B.Sc. (hons) in Computer Science from the University of Dundee.  Prior to moving to Oregon State in 2012, he was an Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, with a courtesy appointment in Biomedical Engineering, at Washington University in St. Louis.  His research interests cover the fields of human-robot interaction, machine learning, and mobile robotics.  His recent work has focused on how robots and robotic technologies can be used for people with severe motor disabilities.  He is particularly proud of his Erdős (3), and his Bacon number (also 3).