September 04, 9:00 am - 12:15 pm (CEST)

Speakers: Simon Parsons, Elizabeth Sklar, Nir Oren, Nadin Kökciyan, Isabel Sassoon, Josh Murphy

Tutorial website: https://sites.google.com/view/arg-hai-tutorial-ecai20/

Agenda: Computational Argumentation in the context of Human-Agent Interaction

This tutorial aims to provide an initial foundation in the concepts underlying computational argumentation and its role and relevance in the context of Human-Centric AI. We will also discuss potential applications in this context.

Simon Parsons (website)

Simon has recently moved to the University of Lincoln (UK) where he is Global Chair in Machine Learning in the School of Computer Science. He retains a part-time affiliation as Professor of Computer Science in the Department of Informatics at King’s College London. He received his PhD from University of London in 1993, and held academic positions at Queen Mary and Westfield College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, City University of New York and University of Liverpool before joining King’s. Simon’s research interests center on autonomous systems, in particular coordination and decision-making, and he has published over 300 papers and written or edited 11 books on these topics. He is co-Editor of Knowledge Engineering Review, and an Editorial Board member for Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems and Argument & Computation.

Elizabeth Sklar (website)

Elizabeth has recently moved to the University of Lincoln (UK) where she is Professor of Agri-Robotics in the Lincoln Institute for Agri-Food Technology. She retains a part-time affiliation as a Professor of Robotics in the Department of Engineering at King’s College London. She received her PhD from Brandeis University (US) in 2000, and subsequently has held academic positions at Columbia University (US), City University of New York (US) and University of Liverpool (UK). She is a former US-UK Fulbright Scholar (2013-14). Dr Sklar’s research interests include human/multi-robot interaction, data-backed decision making and behaviour mining. While in the US, her work was largely funded by the National Science Foundation. She has published over 150 papers in refereed journals, conferences and workshops and has edited two books. She is a founding chair of RoboCupJunior, on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems and on the Board of Directors for the International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multi-agent Systems. Sklar has 20 years experience teaching in higher education. She has previously given Tutorials in 4 international conferences, including AAMAS and AAAI.

Nir Oren (website)

Nir is a Professor in, and Head of Computing Science at the University of Aberdeen. He has held academic positions at King’s College London and the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa). Nir’s research interests revolve around practical reasoning and explanation of behaviour in multi-agent systems, and he has published over 150 papers on topics such as argumentation, normative reasoning and trust. He is a co-founder of the bi-annual International Workshop on the Theory and Application of Formal Argumentation and the International Competition on Computational Models of Argumentation. He teaches at the post-graduate and undergraduate level at Aberdeen, and has given multiple tutorials on argumentation at various summer schools and symposia.

Nadin Kökciyan (website)

Nadin is a Lecturer in Artificial Intelligence in the School of Informatics at University of Edinburgh; and a Visiting Research Fellow in the Department of Informatics at King’s College London. Her research interests include multi-agent systems and privacy in social software. Her current focus is on making use of argumentation for making and explaining decisions in the context of various domains such as online systems and healthcare. She received her PhD from Bogazici University in 2017, and held a postdoc position at King’s College London prior to joining University of Edinburgh. Nadin regularly serves on the program committees for leading AI conferences such as AAMAS, IJCAI, AAAI and ECAI. Nadin was a tutor in previous editions of this tutorial Computational Argumentation in the Context of Human-Agent Interaction, held at International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS) 2019 and Human-Agent Interaction (HAI) 2018.

Isabel Sassoon (website)

Isabel is a Lecturer at Brunel University and Visiting Research Fellow in the Department of Informatics at King’s College London. Her research interests are in the field of argumentation and data science, in her current research project this is applied to reasoning and dialogues in the context of clinical actions. Isabel is part of the team that designed and developed this tutorial Computational Argumentation in the Context of Human-Agent Interaction. She was one of the tutors for the previous editions of this tutorial at the Human-Agent Interaction (HAI) 2018 and at International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS) 2019. Isabel is Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Isabel has lectured for two years on Data Science MSc. Program. Prior to joining King’s College London Isabel worked for more than 10 years as a data science consultant in industry, including 8 years in SAS. Isabel read Statistics, Operations Research and Economics at Tel Aviv University and received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from King’s College London. Isabel is on the program committees for leading AI and Informatics conferences such as IJCAI, ECAI and AMIA.

Josh Murphy (website)

Josh is a Lecturer of Computer Science Education in the Department of Informatics at King’s College London. His research interests lay in the area of computational argument-based persuasion and strategic reasoning in dialogues. Josh completed his Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2019 from King’s College London. He has delivered a wide range of modules during his time at King’s, such as Introductory Programming, Computer Systems, and AI. He is an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in recognition of teaching.