HCC13 – This Changes Everything
Venue: IFIP World Computer Congress in Poznan, Poland
Time: 17th-21st September 2018
Programme: DOWNLOAD HERE
Archive website: CLICK HERE
Keynote
Identifying the Conscience of the Computing Profession: Is it even possible – The ACM Code of Ethics Journey
Don Gotterbarn, Chair, ACM Code 2018 Update Project
The ACM recently completed a multi-year project updating its Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct which they undertook because of the profound changes in the way computing interacts with society and now computing changes even the most basic social infrastructures. These changes required an extensive revisiting the ethical responsibilities of computing professionals.
Professional codes of ethics should represent the global conscience of the profession, not narrow political positions. Codes are about societies obligations to the computing professional. Codes should make clear the rights of computing professionals to be free from unethical work demands. Computing professionals are now asked to work on systems which can surreptitiously censor the Internet, gather data on every aspect of our lives, and develop algorithms which amplify existing human biases when they make judgments that affectsociety and its citizens.
Codes of ethics should make clear the obligations computing professionals have to the profession at large and their obligations to society. These are obligation about how they approach their work and about how they promote an ethical approach to the profession.
Above all, a code should help the computing professional work through complex ethical decisions. It should actually be of some practical use answering questions like how do you hard code ethics into a computer system, how do you make algorithms accountable, and how to address the risk in machine learning systems. It should also fit on an A4 poster.
This talk, using real-world examples from the ACM Code Update project, will focus on several positive lessons learned about the ethics of computing professionals, ethical negotiation in the practice of the profession, and reducing philosophical distractions to practical ethical issues. We shall also discuss ways of facilitating and encouraging professional’s attention to the ethical side of technology.
Call for Papers
“I denied climate change for longer than I cared to admit. Not like Donald Trump and the Tea Partiers going on about how the continued existence of winter proves it’s all a hoax…. I told myself the science was too complicated and the environmentalists were dealing with it…. A great many of us engage in this kind of climate change denial.” Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything p3. (2014)
This Changes Everything. Many of us are likely to associate this phrase with Steve Jobs’ introduction of the iPhone in 2007. To be sure, most of us are enthusiastic about information and communication technology (ICT) precisely because we believe and hope that it will change everything – for the better, we presume. But beyond the iPhone and ICTs more broadly, there are clearly other candidates for the “This.” “This” may be the impact of the oncoming bioinformatics redesign of species – for example, chimeras supplying organ replacements and skin regeneration techniques. “This” could be the fourth industrial revolution of artificially intelligent robots set to upturn our economies with the automation of much unskilled and semi-skilled work. But “This” is also, without question, the greatest challenge of our age: climate change.
Since 1974, the Human Choice and Computers (HCC) conference series has consistently fostered innovative thinking about the interfaces between society and technology. Such thinking always reflects the social concerns of a specific time: Globalisation in 1998, Choice and Quality of Life in 2002, An Information Society for All in 2006, What Kind of Information Society in 2010, and Technology and Intimacy in 2016 are primary examples. The number and range of challenges facing the world today at the interface between society and technology are not only mounting, but are increasingly doing so at the deepest levels of the existential – not simply in terms of meaning and justice, but, most fundamentally, in terms of the survival of different species and ecology generally. With the awareness, in particular, that Global Leadership on the increasingly pressing issue of climate change is in short supply, Human Choice and Computers turns – among other concerns – to the question: ICT and Climate Change – What Can We Do?
ICTs can play a fundamental role in the improvement of the education, understanding and explanation of climate change and issues of sustainability, the progress on gender equality, medical advances, and in addressing inequalities of access to the benefits of a highly technological society. It is also the site of challenges to individual rights, privacy, and accountability, and the means by which globalisation has both spread and exacerbated inequalities. Awareness that the size of the share of the growing economic pie that the majority receive has long since stagnated – and has even begun to shrink – has led to unfolding seismic shifts in the global order. Electorates (enfranchised and disenfranchised) in the Middle East, Europe and the US in recent years have punished those sections of society that had both benefited most from globalisation and yet believed their own rhetoric that, as the pie got larger, everyone’s share of it increased. The still more fundamental realisation that it is simply not possible, on a finite Earth, to keep growing the pie, is an economics lesson that the planet is teaching us with increasing ferocity. A political economy of finite wants and non-growth, although it seems as far off as it was when Herman Daly wrote of it in 1973, may yet impose itself – necessarily with the vital help of ICTs.
We propose to address these realities and concerns in the next Human Choice and Computers conference: ‘This Changes Everything’ – among many others relevant to the theme. The challenges of Climate Change are indeed something no one, in any sector, can avoid, and the changes required to combat its effects will require all our efforts. The Chairs of 13th Human Choice and Computers Conference suggest that everyone in the information systems community should be working towards this end – or at the very least, not against it. How do these realizations manifest themselves in the ICT sector specifically, and what other challenges – which change everything – must we address? The 13th Human Choice and Computers Conference invites both academics and practitioners in the field of ICTs and Society to take stock of their engagements, review their focus, and assess what and how each and everyone of us might be able to do to contribute, in however small a way, toward this aim: how can we help the elite-owned oil tanker of today’s global economy, in the transformations already beginning in local, regional, national and international contexts, towards becoming the flotilla of diverse, environmentally and socially conscious, and thriving communities that we must and can develop.
Track Themes
Submissions are welcomed that speak directly and less directly to the conference theme. Interpreting ‘This Changes Everything’ as widely as possible will be welcomed – so that “this” will mean not only climate change, but any of those other global challenges that seem to be most pressing to the Working Groups of TC9 and its National Society representatives – including the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Submissions are also welcome, not just to the General Conference Track on change, but to the other foci of the Track Themes outlined below:
SOCIETAL IMPLICATIONS, EFFECTS AND IMPACTS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Track Chairs: Diane Whitehouse and Christopher Zielinski (WG9.2)
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is back in the news, thanks to such interpreters as Nick Bostrom (Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies), public declarations by big-budget technology industrialists like Bill Gates (Microsoft), Elon Musk (PayPal, Tesla, OpenAI, et.) and Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn). AI-driven tools, such as drones and self-driving cars, present new social and ethical challenges documented in a growing literature. Is AI set to provide the human race with a bright new future, or is it the harbinger of ultimate doom? Will nano AI provide new ways of delivering health or will the robots take over? Many possible futures have considerable – even existential – social consequences. What are they? Accountability is certainly needed, but who will provide it? Can it be in-built or do we need watchdogs? What social and ethical structures are needed now and what will be needed in the years to come?
INCLUDING CRITICAL ISSUES BEYOND THE ICT CONTEXT IN CODES OF CONDUCT/ETHICS
Track Chairs: Kai Kimppa and Penny Duquenoy (SIG9.2.2)
As the impact of ICT developments on society increases and becomes integrated into the ‘everyday’, the ‘invisibility factor’ put forward by James Moor* (1985) of the potential for invisible abuse, invisible programming values, invisible complex calculations leading to the need for consideration of ethics, becomes ever-more relevant. The potential of ICT for re-use, mission creep, dual use and transformation of ways of living may warrant extending codes of ethics/conduct beyond the ICT context, but also raises questions of feasibility and limits of professional responsibility in development and deployment.
*Moor, J.H.(1985) What is Computer Ethics? Metaphilosophy, 16:266-275, 1985
OUR DIGITAL LIVES
Track Chair: Petros Chamakiotis and Brad McKenna (WG9.5)
Given the immense popularity of information and communication technologies, in this track we are interested in studies exploring our newly digital lives. We invite submissions with both an organisational or societal focus, examining how virtual teams, digital transformation, crowdsourcing, social media, online communities, digital labour, digital games, digital tourism and other innovations have changed our lives. We hope to attract research that offers fresh theoretical or empirical insights on how ‘our digital lives’ have transformed the way we work, communicate, and play together.
THIS CHANGED EVERYTHING
Track Chair: Christopher Leslie (WG9.7)
In the history of computing, who were the important people and what were the important devices that deserve recognition as fulcrums that “changed everything”? In the development of computers as well as the study of history more generally, we also know that the more things change, the more they sometimes stay the same. What shifts in the history of computing were portrayed as changing everything but on closer analysis reveal deeper continuities? How do these lessons give us insight into future invention and innovation in computing?
GENDER IN ICT
Track Chairs: Sisse Finken, Christina Mörtberg and Johanna Sefyrin (WG9.8)
Concerns related to the Anthropocene (e.g. globalisation, climate change, migration) prompt an investigation into how a critical feminist gaze (feminist theories) can help unpack the various meanings of “This” and “Changes” in the main conference theme. We also ask what dilemmas the encounter between gender and ICTs highlight in today’s challenges.
ICT AND SUSTAINABILITY
Track Chairs: Thomas Lennerfors and Per Fors (WG9.9)
ICT has truly transformed our society in more ways than we can imagine. While this transformation has increased the quality of life for many human beings, it has also accelerated the degradation of our local and global environment by increased energy usage, resource depletion, e-waste and pollution. However, ICT can also have the potential of reversing ecological degradation in areas such as agriculture, production of consumer goods, transportation and construction. To this track, we invite all contributions discussing this complex but urgent topic.
CLIMATE RISK, CYBER-SECURITY, AND THE DARK WEB
Track Chair: Louise Leenen (WG9.10)
“This changes everything” in terms of cyber-security, the Dark Web, the security of e-voting, health information, public services such as energy or the water supply, and cyber terrorism. Both former President Obama and former UK Prime Minister Cameron stated that climate change constitutes a risk to their countries’ national security. We invite papers on these and other topics to this Track.
PRIVACY, DATA PROTECTION, AND AUTOMATION
Track Chair: Taro Komukai (Japan National Representative)
A range of privacy concerns are raised by the development of new technologies such as AI, Robots, Drones, IoT, censor networks, etc., and, for example, it is becoming more and more difficult to get efficient consent for one or more specific purposes from data subjects. This track focuses on the challenge of legal schemes to adapt to new situations in various areas of the world.
ICT AND AN INCLUSIVE SOCIETY
Track Chairs: Hossana Twinomurinzi and Jackie Phahlamohlaka (South Africa National Representative)
There exists an opportunity for ICT to provide locally innovative solutions that meet the three core challenges of South Africa: inequity (and inequality), poverty, and unemployment (especially youth unemployment). This track seeks papers that investigate the role of ICT in spawning an inclusive society, creating employment and stimulating economic and entrepreneurial activities.
Klein, N (2014) This Changes Everything London: Penguin
Daly, H (ed) (1973) Economics, Ecology, Ethics Oxford: Freeman
Submission:
Full papers are invited that address the Conference Theme, or any of the above Track Themes. All papers will be subject to double-blind review. Authors of accepted papers will be invited to revise their work in keeping with reviewers’ comments prior to formatting, and inclusion in the Programme and Proceedings.
Important Dates:
Full paper deadline 31st January 2018
Reviews and revisions during February, March and April.
Final Papers by 30th April.
World Computer Congress 17th-21st September 2018, Poznan, Poland.
Programme Committee
Chairs
David Kreps – University of Salford, UK, (Chair TC9 and WG9.5, and HCC12)
Kai Kimppa – Turku University, Finland, (Chair HCC11 and Vice-Chair WG9.2.2), Louise Leenen – Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), South Africa, (Chair WG9.10)
and guest Charles Ess – Oslo University, Professor of Digital Media Ethics.
Programme Committee
Bernd Stahl, De Montfort University, UK
Niki Panteli, Royal Holloway University, UK
Chris Leslie, New York University, USA
Taro Komukai, Nihon University, Japan
Martin Warnke, Leuphana University, Germany
Penny Duquenoy, Middlesex University, UK
Sisse Finken, Linnaeus University, Sweden
Christina Mörtberg, Linnaeus University, Sweden
Kaori Ishii, Tsukuba University, Japan
Jackie Phahlamohlaka, CSIR, South Africa
Twinomurinzi Hossana, University of South Africa
Petros Chamakiotis, University of Sussex, UK
Brad McKenna, University of East Anglia, UK
Johanna Sefyrin, Linköping University, Sweden
Thomas Lennerfors, Uppsala University, Sweden
Per Fors, Uppsala University, Sweden
Ela Klecun, London School of Economics, UK
Will Venters, London School of Economics, UK
Norberto Patrignani, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
Magda David Hercheui, Westminster, UK
Vic Grout, Glyndwr University, UK
Marie Griffiths University of Salford, UK
Marthie Grobler, CSIRO, Australia
Leigh Armistead, Peregrine Technical Solution, USA
John Martino, Victoria University, Australia
Joey Jansen van Vuuren, CSIR, South Africa
Olli Heimo, University of Turku, Finland
Minna Rantanen, University of Turku, Finland
Brett van Niekerk, Transnet, South Africa
Trishana Ramluckan, University of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa
Henk Roodt, Waiko Institute of Technology, New Zealand
Renier van Heerden, CSIR, South Africa
Diane Whitehouse, The Castlegate Consultancy, UK
Christopher Zielinski, University of Winchester, UK
Wenjie Cai, University of Greenwich, UK
Shahper Vodanovich, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand
Gloria Liu, National Central University, Taiwan
Lena Waizenegger, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand
Adrian Benfell, Portsmouth University, UK
Christine Van Toorn, University of New South Wales, Australia
Julie Cameron, Info.TEC Solutions Pty Ltd., Australia
Peter Singleton, Cambridge Health Informatics, UK
Gopal Tadepalli, Anna University, India
Richard Taylor, International Baccalaureate, UK
Anne-Marie Tuikka, Turku University, Finland
Elin Palm, Linköpings University, Sweden
Iordanis Kavathatzopoulos, Uppsala University, Sweden
Mikael Laaksoharju, Uppsala University, Sweden
Takashi Majima, Senshu University, Japan
Hanna Hasselqvist, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
Mohammad Moeini, University of Sussex, UK
Katerina Antonopoulou, University of Sussex, UK
Wendy Arianne Günther, Vrije Universiteit, Netherlands
Njod Al Jabr, University of Sussex, UK
Anders Persson, Uppsala University, Sweden
Stavros Polykarpou, University of Cambridge, UK
Arzoo Atiq, Massey University, New Zealand
Maria Gebbels, University of Greenwich, UK
Purimprach Sangkaew, University of Surrey, UK
Thembisa Ngqondi, University of Mpumalanga, South Africa
Ruth Wario, University of Free State, South Africa
Liezel Cilliers, University of Fort Hare, South Africa
James Njenga, University of Western Cape, South Africa
Osden Jokonya, North-West University, South Africa
Jean-Paul Van Belle, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Judy van Biljon, University of South Africa, South Africa
Billy Mathias Kalema, Tshwane University of Technology, South Africa
Wallace Chigona, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Riana Steyn, University of Pretoria, South Africa
Tendani Mawela, University of South Africa, South Africa
Kirstin Krauss, University of South Africa, South Africa
Sam Takavarasha Jr, University of Fort Hare, South Africa
Singh Shawren, University of South Africa, South Africa
Nixon Muganda-Ochara, University of Venda, South Africa
Kiyoshi Murata, Meiji University, Japan
Submission
HCC13 welcomes submission of full papers by 31st January 2018.
The conference is open to attendees at all stages of career and education, whether you are at the start, middle or peak of your career, either as academics or practitioners. Submitted papers should be approximately 3,000-5,000 words in length.
Instructions:
Please format your paper according to the Springer AICT Guidelines. These are different from many other publications. Please ensure identifying author information is removed for blind peer review.
Via the above link you can access Springer’s OCS Service. You will need to register for an account if you haven’t done so before: enter your email address and it will email you a link to complete your details. Once you have logged in, use the search box in the top right corner to find “HCC2018” and the search result will be 13th IFIP TC9 International Conference on Human Choice and Computers: This Changes Everything. Enter here, and then choose and enter your track. Once inside your track you can click on the Submit Abstract icon:
Now enter Title, Keywords, paste in your Abstract, add Author names, and click Choose File to select a pdf of your full paper. Please ensure identifying author information is removed from your full paper for blind peer review. Click on the ‘Submit Abstract’ button to upload. A fuller help-guide to submitting your paper through OCS is available here.
Accepted Papers
Once reviewed, if your paper is accepted for inclusion in the Conference and publication in the Proceedings, we will require you to format the final version of your paper according to the Springer Guidelines for Authors of Proceedings and submit it through the OCS system by April 30th 2018, along with the Springer Copyright Form.
Publication
Springer will be publishing the proceedings of the conference in the IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology series (IFIP AICT) and these Proceedings will be included in your delegate pack on arrival in Poznan, Poland.
Registration
Registration at the World Computer Congress is now open. Please select TC9-HCC13 when registering to attend the Congress for Wednesday 19th, Thursday 20th, and Friday 21st September.
Full details of registration, accommodation, travel arrangements and the sights and sounds of Poznan, Poland, are now available at the World Computer Congress website.
Please note that participants in 13th IFIP Human Choice and Computers conference must register at least for the three days of our own conference – Wed 19th-Fri 21st – if not registering for the whole of WCC.