<div dir="ltr"> <div>CALL FOR PAPERS **Apologies for cross-posting** Workshop on Symbiotic Society with Avatars: Social Acceptance, Ethics, and Technologies (SSA) In conjunction with the 31st IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN) <a href="https://www.asedc.org/RO-MAN2022_SSA_workshop">https://www.asedc.org/RO-MAN2022_SSA_workshop</a> Workshop date: September 2, 2022 Half day (morning session) workshop in hybrid format 1. Statement of objectives Although COVID-19 pandemic caused many problems in the society, new technologies emerged to overcome the difficulties. One aspect is communication. Using a telepresence robot, people can exist in a distant physical space and meet other people there. In a metaverse environment, the user is represented as a virtual character. In both cases, the user is represented as an avatar (an alter ego), and communicates with other people in a given space by controlling the avatar remotely. Moreover, avatars can be semi-autonomous by incorporating artificial intelligence technologies. By using such avatars, people can extend their physical, cognitive, and perceptual capabilities. People are able to be free from the constraints of time and space. Therefore, avatar technologies may impact human life, and it is indispensable to discuss what technologies are necessary to realize avatars that are well accepted in the society as well as ethical and legal issues, while envisioning a future symbiotic society in which people communicate with other people's avatars. This workshop aims to provide an opportunity that researchers in communication robot, avatar, psychology, ethics, and law come together and discuss the issues to realize a symbiotic society with avatars. 2. Call for Position Papers We will elicit position papers that propose ideas, questions, and research results, which contribute to fruitful discussions at the workshop. The position papers will be presented as a poster. Paper length should be 1 page (excluding reference) in the RO-MAN 2022 format: RO-MAN Papers Templates (<a href="http://www.smile.unina.it/ro-man2022/call-for-papers" style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(5,99,193)">http://www.smile.unina.it/ro-man2022/call-for-papers</a>). Please submit your paper to the EasyChair submission site: Paper submission (<a href="https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ssa2022" style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(5,99,193)">https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ssa2022</a>). 3. List of topics The list of topics is as follows (but not limited to). Social relationship and communication - Issues on accepting a symbiotic society with social robots - Social relationship in human-robot communication - Dependence on avatars in social communication - Social rapport in human-robot communication - User identity in communicating through telepresence robots (gender, age, personality, culture) Ethical and moral issues - Moral aspects in human-robot communication - Lack of morality in human-robot communication (robot abuse) - Robot mal-use by tele-operators (abuse, harassment, etc.) - Privacy in human-robot communication - Cognitive, emotional, and behavioral impacts on users interacting with social robots Technologies towards socially well-accepted avatars - Technologies for reducing and preventing robot mal-use - Moral computing - Developing social robots with ethical consciousness - Technologies for protecting user privacy in using social robots - Platforms and specifications for socially well-accepted robots 4. Important Dates Paper submission: July 17, 2022 Notification of acceptance: July 27, 2022 Camera ready: August 8, 2022 Workshop: September 2, 2022 5. Organizers Yukiko Nakano (Seikei University, Japan) contact: y.nakano[at]<a href="http://st.seikei.ac.jp">st.seikei.ac.jp</a> Takayuki Kanda (Kyoto University, Japan) Minao Kukita (Nagoya University, Japan) Hiroshi Ishiguro (Osaka University & The Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute (ATR), Japan) </div></div>