Artificial Intelligence technology will transform society in profound and, as yet, not fully understood ways. At the core of this transformation is the deployment of AI in applications that will improve the quality of life - or wellbeing - of the world's population.
We need to better understand how AI can make a difference in people's lives. What are the application domains that will make a difference? Are there "grand challenge" applications that we should be working on today? Some of the applications will concern sensitive/personal matters (such as physical or mental health). How do we ensure that the applications do what they are advertised to do? Should there be standards? Safeguards? Ethical guidelines? Privacy rules? And, how will we know if we are succeeding - that we are actually making the world a better place?
Improving human wellbeing encompasses a variety of aspects concerning personal, social, economic, and environmental issues. Inspired by the broad agenda of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), whose ultimate goal is the improvement of human wellbeing, the new track explicitly welcomes work in computational sustainability addressing one or more of the seventeen sustainable development goals, which include, no poverty, no hunger, health, education, gender equality, decent work, conservation and environmental sustainability, sustainable communities, climate change, and peace and justice, among others. Other applications concerning social and personal welfare (e.g., games, entertainment, and arts) are also welcome.
In the long term, AI will make people's lives better. In the short term we need to better understand what we should and should not be doing. This Special Track seeks to stimulate discussions on the application of AI technology for the betterment of humankind's wellbeing.
We seek papers on a variety of topics concerning improvement of human wellbeing. The list below is non-exhaustive, and both technically-oriented and philosophically-oriented contributions are welcome - reporting on the experience(s) of deployed applications are especially welcome.
Submission Site: https://ijcai2019.confmaster.net/
In the submission system, when you choose keywords, go down the list and you should select the keywords that belong to this special track.
Formatting Guidelines, LaTeX Styles and Word Template: http://www.ijcai.org/authors_kit
Submitted papers must be formatted according to IJCAI guidelines and submitted electronically through the IJCAI-19 special track paper submission site. Full instructions including formatting guidelines and electronic templates are available on the IJCAI-19 website. Submissions must be in electronic form using the IJCAI-19 paper submission software linked above. Submissions must be self-contained; IJCAI-19 will not accept or review any supplementary materials. At least one author of each accepted paper is required to attend the conference to present the work. Authors will be required to agree to this requirement at the time of submission. Abstracts are due electronically on February 19, 2019 (11:59PM UTC-12) and full papers on February 25, 2019 (11:59PM UTC-12). Submissions received after the deadline or that do not meet the length or formatting requirements will not be considered for review (see the paper length and format section below). No email or fax submissions will be accepted. Notification of receipt of an electronically submitted paper will be emailed to the designated contact author soon after receipt. The designated author will be notified by email about acceptance or rejection by May 9, 2019.
IJCAI-19 will not accept any paper that, at the time of submission, is under review for, has already been published in, or has already been accepted for publication in, a journal or another venue with formally published proceedings. As a rule of thumb, authors should regard any publication with an ISBN or ISSN as a formal publication. Authors are also required not to submit their papers to venues with formal publication during the IJCAI-19 review period. These restrictions are not intended to apply to workshops and similar specialized presentations with a limited audience and without published proceedings. Authors will be required to confirm that their submissions conform to these requirements at the time of submission. A multiple submission is grounds for immediate rejection of the submitted paper.
All submissions will be treated in strict confidence until the publication date.
All people involved in the IJCAI-19 review process adhere to the IJCAI conflict of interest policy. Details can be found at http://ijcai.org/.
Like submissions to the main track, submissions to the special track on the AI for Improving Human Wellbeing should be anonymous.
Submitted technical papers must be no longer than seven pages in total: six pages for the main text of the paper (including all figures but excluding references), and one additional page for references. Note that the references page can only include references. For accepted papers, up to two additional pages may be purchased at an additional cost per page, but note that at the time of submissions, papers should adhere to the guidelines above: six pages for main text plus one page for references. Papers must be formatted according to posted IJCAI-19 guidelines, which will be available on the conference website (the style will be essentially that of previous IJCAI conferences). Electronic templates for the LaTeX typesetting package, as well as a Word template, that conform to IJCAI-19 guidelines will be made available at the conference website. Final camera ready versions will be formatted according to the publisher's instructions. Authors are required to submit their electronic papers in PDF format. Files in Postscript (ps) or any other format will not be accepted. Over-length papers will be rejected without review. Submissions must be self-contained; IJCAI-19 will not accept or review any supplementary material.
The main track of IJCAI-19 is enforcing a submission limit of no more of 10 submissions per individual author. However, papers submitted to the special track do not count for this number of submissions. The list of authors provided at submission time is final. Authors may not be added to, or removed from, papers following submission. (However, author ordering may still be changed.) Also, by submitting a paper to IJCAI-19, authors must acknowledge that they will do their best to contribute in some way to the review process, if asked to.
Please send all enquiries about the Special Track on the AI for Improving Human Wellbeing to one or both of the IJCAI-19 Special Track Co-Chairs, Carla Gomes (gomes@cs.cornell.edu) and Jonathan Schaeffer (jonathan@ualberta.ca).