[Air-l] PRESENCE: Special Issue CFP: "Legal, Ethical, & Policy Issues"

rlauria rlauria at att.net
Sat Apr 19 05:47:40 PDT 2003


CALL FOR PAPERS
PRESENCE: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments

Special Issue on Legal, Ethical, and Policy Issues Associated with
Wearable Computers, Virtual Environments, and Computer Mediated Reality

Guest Editors: Woodrow Barfield, Steve Mann, Ian Kerr, and Rita Lauria

PRESENCE, published by the MIT Press, is the first journal for serious
investigators of teleoperators and virtual environments, incorporating
perspectives from physics to philosophy.

Recent advances in the technologies associated with the development of
wearable computing, virtual environments, and mediated (augmented,
dimensioned, or otherwise computer-modified) realities have led to
interesting legal, policy, and ethical issues. As evidence of the emerging
interest in this area, the term "cyborglaw" has already appeared in numerous
events, workshops, and symposia.

Questions of interest for the special edition include:  Should an
artificially intelligent system represented within a virtual environment by
an avatar be afforded the rights of legal personhood, be able to contract,
or be liable for errors, in the same way as humans or abstract entities such
as corporations that already enjoy such rights?  Are the legal, ethical, or
policy issues different when the intelligence arises through having a human
being in the feedback loop of a computational process, i.e. as with
Humanistic Intelligence (HI)?  Should humans that wear computing (sometimes
termed cyborgs, or cybernetic organisms) be recognized as legal entities,
and afforded special protections like those who wear prosthesis? What
liabilities should be incurred by those who disrupt the functioning of a
person's prosthesis or wearable computer?

Papers that discuss and describe current legal, policy, and ethical issues
and case law associated with technology in the design and use of wearable
computing, virtual and mediated (augmented/dimensioned/modified) reality
environments, are especially sought. Topics include, but are not limited to:

* Policy and ethical issues associated with wearable computing, virtual
environments, and mediated reality.
* Legal issues unique to those who integrate wearable computing and their
everyday life.
* Legal liability of artificially intelligent systems and humanistically
intelligent systems.
* Legal personhood issues for virtual or mediated entities.
* Intellectual property rights as applicable to artificially or
humanistically intelligent systems, especially copyright.
* Venue for distributed intelligent systems, and collective connected
humanistic intelligence.
* Issues of search and seizure for artificially and humanistically
intelligent systems.
* Right of publicity for virtual or mediated entities.

Submission Deadline: July 15, 2003.

Original manuscripts (in Microsoft Word or anonymous .pdf) should be emailed
to presence at mit.edu. They should conform to the submission guidelines
available at http://mitpress.mit.edu/pres.

Contact Information:

Woodrow Barfield Jbar5377 at aol.com
Steve Mann mann at eecg.toronto.edu
Ian Kerr Iankerr at uottawa.ca
Rita Lauia rlauria at att.net





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