Discussants and Moderators: Day One – April 1st

We Robot 2016 presentations feature Discussants and Moderators who are in integral part of the conference. Discussants are the lead speakers in their session and are responsible for presenting the main themes of the paper and offering their views. Moderators are the ringmasters of their panels.

Rebecca Crootof is the We Robot 2016 Discussant for Madeleine Elish’s paper Moral Crumple Zones: Cautionary Tales in Human Robot Interaction on Friday, April 1st at 8:45 AM at the University of Miami Newman Alumni Center in Coral Gables, Florida. Rebecca Crootof is a Ph.D. in Law candidate at Yale Law School and a Resident Fellow with the Yale Information Society Project. She specializes in legal evolution and the interplay between law and new technology, with a focus on how regulation can channel technological developments to promote socially desirable aims. Crootof is currently teaching a course on regulating disruptive technology, and she has recently written on how customary international law may modify treaties, the implications of new weaponry for the U.S. war powers debate, institutional means of determining state responsibility for unlawful cyberattacks, and how autonomous weapon systems may foster the development of international tort law.

Ashkan Soltani is the We Robot 2016 Discussant for Matthew Reuben and William D. Smart’s paper Privacy in Human-Robot Interaction: Survey and Future Work on Friday, April 1st at 10:15 AM at the University of Miami Newman Alumni Center in Coral Gables, Florida. Ashkan Soltani is an independent researcher and technologist specializing on issues relating to privacy, security, and behavioral economics. His work draws attention to privacy problems online, demystifies technology for the non-technically inclined, and provides data-driven insights to help inform policy. He’s previously served a brief stint as a Senior Advisor to the U.S. Chief Technology Officer in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and as the Chief Technologist for the Federal Trade Commission, advising the commission on its technology related policy as well as helping to create its new Office of Technology Research and Investigation. He also served at the FTC in 2010 as one of the first staff technologists in the Division of Privacy and Identity Protection, helping to lead investigations into major technology companies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, HTC, and PulsePoint. Ashkan was also recognized as part of the 2014 Pulitzer winning team for his contributions to the Washington Post’s coverage of National Security issues. He was also the primary technical consultant on the Wall Street Journal’s investigative series: “What They Know”, which was a finalist for 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting.

Peter Asaro is the We Robot 2016 Discussant for Jason Millar and AJung Moon’s paper How to Engage the Public on the Ethics and Governance of Lethal Autonomous Weapons on Friday, April 1st at 11:45 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 for Wolfram 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.

Dan Siciliano is the We Robot 2016 Moderator for the Hot Topics Panel on Autonomous Cars, comprising Harry Surden and Mary-Anne Williams’ paper Autonomous Vehicles, Predictability, and Law and Françoise Gilbert and Raffaele Zallone’s paper Connect Cars – Recent Legal Developments on Friday, April 1st at 3:00 PM at the University of Miami Newman Alumni Center in Coral Gables, Florida. F. Daniel Siciliano, JD ’04, is a legal scholar and entrepreneur with expertise in corporate governance, corporate finance, and immigration law. He assumes a variety of leadership roles at the law school, including faculty director of the Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Center for Corporate Governance, associate dean for executive education and special programs and co-director of Stanford’s Directors’ College. He is also the co-originator of the OSCGRS (Open Source Corporate Governance Reporting System) Project. Previously, Siciliano was a teaching fellow for the law school’s international LLM degree program in Corporate Governance and Practice and executive director of the Program in Law, Economics and Business. He is the senior research fellow with the Immigration Policy Center and a frequent commentator on the long-term economic impact of immigration policy and reform. His work has included expert testimony in front of both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Prior to joining Stanford Law School, Siciliano co-founded and served as executive director of the Immigration Outreach Center in Phoenix, Arizona. He has launched and led several successful businesses, including LawLogix Group—named three times to the Inc. 500/5000 list. Siciliano serves as a governance consultant and trainer to board directors of several Fortune 500 companies and is a member of the Academic Council of Corporate Board Member magazine.

A. Michael Froomkin is the We Robot 2016 Discussant for Ryan Calo’s paper Robots In American Law on Friday, April 1st at 4:30 PM at the University of Miami Newman Alumni Center in Coral Gables, Florida. In addition to being the Chair of this year’s Program Committee, Michael is the Laurie Silvers & Mitchell Rubenstein Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Miami, specializing in Privacy Law and Administrative Law. He founded We Robot in 2012. Michael is also the founder-editor of the online law review Jotwell, The Journal of Things We Like (Lots). He serves on the Editorial Board of Information, Communication & Society and of I/S: A Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society. He is on the Advisory Boards of several organizations including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Michael Froomkin writes primarily about privacy, Internet governance, electronic democracy, and cryptography. He is one of the editors (with Ryan Calo and Ian Kerr) of the forthcoming “Robot Law” (Edward Elgar, 2016), a collection of papers primarily drawn from past editions of We Robot.