Important Dates for Bridge Organizers

Note: all deadlines are “anywhere on earth” (UTC-12)

Friday, September 8, 2023: Bridge proposals due (see submission procedure below) 

Friday, September 29, 2023: Bridge acceptance decisions mailed to proposers 

Friday, October 13, 2023: Bridge descriptions, CfP, autobiographical statements and photos due 

Monday, January 8, 2024: Complete materials due 

February 20-21, 2024: AAAI-24 Bridge Program

Bridge Program: Call for Proposals

The AAAI-24 Program Committee invites proposals for the Bridge Program of the Thirty-Eighth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-24). The Bridge Program will be held February 20-27, 2024. Anyone interested in presenting a bridge program at AAAI-24 should submit a proposal as detailed below. 

The Goal of Creating Bridges 

AAAI has incubated numerous AI sub-disciplines and conferences and has nurtured for decades the cohesion of AI.  New communities often emerge when two or more disciplines come together in order to explore new opportunities and perspectives; today, both are plentiful.  The purpose of the AAAI Bridges Program is to tap into this new source of innovation by cultivating sustained collaboration between two or more communities directed towards a common goal. Our interpretation of bridge is broad and encompasses disciplines both within and outside of AI. Hence, the communities that the AAAI Bridges Program brings together could be distinct subfields of AI, such as planning and learning, or different disciplines that contribute to and benefit from AI, such as AI and the humanities.  

A successful bridge frequently focuses different perspectives towards a common vision and may be sparked, for example, by a social need, technological disruption or fundamental scientific question. In addition, a successful bridge is nurtured over a period of time through a suite of synergistic activities that include outreach, technical collaboration and education.  Outreach engages a rich community of researchers, stakeholders, users and funders.  Education is essential, as it trains the next generation on the multiple disciplines that are relevant to the vision.  This leads to effective collaboration and stimulates technical discussion at every level. 

What is the Bridge Program? 

We seek proposals for a set of bridges to be held during AAAI-24.  Each bridge combines elements of education, collaboration and outreach to the end of cultivating communities as described above.  The emphasis of bridges is different from workshops in that bridges tend to focus on catalyzing and educating a nascent cross-disciplinary research community, while workshops tend to focus on stimulating dialogue around research results between interdisciplinary researchers. 

Bridges will occur over a 1-2 day period before the main technical program.  A typical bridge should include the following elements: 

• Education: ½ – 1 day of tutorials and software labs, intended to educate participants on important perspectives and tools from participating disciplines. 
• Collaboration: ½  – 1 day of technical discussion in the form of paper presentations, panels, posters, Oxford-style debates, and provocative talks. 
• Outreach: A panel or motivational talk to be given at the main conference, which communicates the bridge’s vision and perspectives. 

More generally, a bridge can include any of the following activities: 

• A vision and a grand challenge; 
• Common education, such as tutorials that represent the supporting disciplines; 
• Hands-on experiences, such as labs, team challenges, and online activities; 
• Experiences that sustain a community, such as shared software, websites, tutorials, and community challenges that live beyond AAAI-24; 
• Community-building activities, such as paper presentations, posters, debates, discussions, lunches and breakouts; 
• Early career participation, in the form of student posters, breakouts and mentoring; 
• Public awareness through main track talks, demos, early education activities and websites. 

Examples

The following are two examples of potential bridges. 

Example 1 

Researchers in the Machine Learning and Planning communities see an increased trend of ICAPS planning papers that incorporate machine learning methods and a similar trend in NeurIPS papers.  Consequently, researchers from both communities come together to propose the following 1 ½ day bridge: 

Bridge between Machine Learning and Planning: 

• Day 1, Morning: Kickoff vision and 3 x 45 min tutorials on ML  
  and Planning; 
• Day 1, Afternoon: Poster session for all attendees, panel discussions; 
• Day 2, Morning: 2 software labs on ML and Planning;   
• Posting of virtual grand challenge and team formation. 
• Challenge talk in the main conference. 
• Demo track – Planning and ML in action. 
• All participants submit two-page position statements. 

Example 2 

AI researchers increasingly recognize that they have a responsibility for their technologies to be used in an ethical manner.  They decide to turn to the ethics and philosophy communities for insight and education, with an eye towards sustained collaboration.  To this end, they propose the following 1 day bridge: 

Bridge between AI and Ethics: 

• Morning: Tutorials on ethical perspectives from the Social Sciences. 
• Afternoon: Hands-on exploration of ethical challenges in deployed AI  
  systems;  open discussion.  
• Posters during breaks. 
• Dinner time breakout into disciplinary groups. 

Note that these are just notional examples.  These and similar topics are fair game for a bridge proposal. 

Submission Requirements

Each proposal should ideally be 2-3 pages long (CVs of presenters and supplementary materials submitted separately) in AAAI style format. The proposal should include the following items: 

• Title of the bridge 
• Name, affiliation, and email addresses of proposed organizers 
• Goal of the bridge: What challenge, opportunity, or perspective is driving this bridge? Who is the target audience, and what will this audience walk away with?  
• Areas (within and outside AI) that this bridge will bring together. 
• Bridge outline: Identify the specific open questions that the bridge will focus on and describe the topics to be covered. 
• A brief discussion of why this is the right time to foster this bridge, along with a discussion of prior initiatives in this area (if applicable). 
• Was this bridge run at AAAI-23? 
• An indication as to whether the bridge should be considered for a half-day, one-day, or two-day meeting. 
• Bridge Format.   
• What are the elements of the bridge? 
• What activities will the bridge include to support education, and at what level (e.g., researchers, graduate students, undergraduates)?   
• How will the bridge work to build community?  
• What activities will support outreach and awareness? 
• How will the bridge grow a community beyond AAAI-24?  
• A brief description of the proposed bridge format based on the mix of activities listed above (see earlier examples). 
• Estimated number of participants: Please estimate the audience size (a large audience is not always preferable). 
• Each proposal must include the CVs of the proposed organizers: A short CV (1-2 pages) for each proposer, highlighting their expertise in the proposed area and at organizing similar events. Strong bridge proposals include organizers who bring differing perspectives to the bridge topic and who are actively connected to the communities of potential participants.

Bridge Organization 

Bridge organizers will be responsible for the following: 

• Producing a call for participation. The call for participation for the proposed bridge is due no later than Friday, October 13, 2023 and will be posted on the AAAI website. Organizers are responsible for additional publicity, such as distributing the CFP to relevant newsgroups and electronic mailing lists, and especially to potential audiences from outside the AAAI community. Organizers are encouraged to maintain their own website with updated information about the initiative. 
• Preparing all material that needs to be distributed to the participants in the bridge. The material is needed no later than January 19th, 2024.   
• Selecting participants. Bridge attendance is by invitation of the organizers. Selection of attendees will be made by the organizers on the basis of submissions. Bridge organizers will need to provide AAAI with a preliminary list of the participants by January 19th, 2024. Similar to AAAI Tutorials and Workshops, additional conference attendees are free to register, space permitting. 
• Bridge organizers are encouraged to pursue their own channels for publishing material regarding their bridge. Organizers are responsible for coordinating this process and should communicate directly with their participants regarding deadlines and other issues.   

AAAI will provide logistical support, meeting places for the bridges, and will determine the dates and times of the bridges. AAAI reserves the right to drop any bridge if the organizers miss the above deadlines or if there is insufficient participation. Bridges are not to be used as a vehicle for marketing products. A reduced bridge registration fee will be offered to AAAI-24 technical program registrants. 

Submission Procedure

Please submit your bridge proposals to the EasyChair submission site no later than September 8th, 2023 (no postal submissions). PDF format is required. Organizers will be notified of the committee’s decision by September 29th, 2023.  

For More Information

Inquiries concerning submissions and suggestions for the tutorial and lab forum may be directed to the forum cochairs at aaai24bpchairs@aaai.org. All other inquiries should be directed to AAAI at aaai24@aaai.org.

AAAI-24 Bridge Program Cochairs

Sara Bernardini (Royal Holloway University of London, UK) 

Brian Williams (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)