The workshop explores both the technical advancements provided by awareness and the philosophical, ethical, and societal impacts and implications of aware agents. It provides a forum for discussion between different research communities, including artificial intelligence, robotics, philosophy, and social sciences. Through keynote talks, contributed sessions, and an interactive panel discussion, participants will explore diverse perspectives, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation. This dual focus on technical advancement and societal impact aims to inspire not only the development of more capable learning agents but also a thoughtful approach to their integration into the world. By addressing these interconnected dimensions, the workshop seeks to ensure that advancements in awareness contribute positively to both technology and society.

The workshop is framed within the context of the  “Awareness Inside” portfolio, a recent initiative launched by the European Innovation Council (EIC) funding  8 Pathfinder collaborative projects investigating awareness and consciousness as actionable design concepts for artificial agents.

Submission Guidelines

The workshop accepts both regular submissions that will be published in the CEUR Workshop Proceedings, as well as non-archival submissions (that will not appear in conference proceedings) to facilitate dissemination of results, discussion and cross-breeding of communities with radically different publishing habits.

Each accepted contribution (archival or non-archival) will be presented by an Author registered to the Workshop/Conference.

We accept submissions under the forms of

•     Regular Contributions (12 pages, single column), discussing fully fledged studies  and that will appear in the workshop proceedings
•     Short Papers (6 pages, single column), reporting early results of ongoing works or discussion topics to foster debate, and that will also appear in the workshop proceedings
•     Non-Archival (12 pages, single column), reporting results of a relevant recent work (published or submitted in other venues); these paper WILL NOT appear in the workshop proceedings

All submissions should be in PDF format: irrespective of the nature, all submissions will receive 3 reviews. Peer-review will be single blind and will be handled through EasyChair.

All manuscripts, irrespectively of their nature (Regular, Extended Abstract, Non-Archival), need to be formatted according to the CEURART style.

Submissions are handled via Easychair: https://easychair.org/conferences?conf=ala2025

List of Topics

A list of (tentative and non-exhaustive) topics of interest for the workshop follows:

• Generalization Through Awareness: How awareness can enhance adaptability to dynamic and unseen scenarios, advancing the generalization capabilities of ML models.
• Architectures for Computational Awareness: from computational frameworks to concrete computational implementations of machine awareness.
• Self-Awareness in Learning Systems: Developing methods for agents to introspect, identify gaps in understanding, and autonomously refine their learning processes.
• Measures of Awareness: Definition of measures and processes to evaluate machine awareness, including task-related performance, computational and behavioural measures.
• Trust, Transparency, and Explainability: The role of awareness in improving the interpretability of AI systems, making their reasoning and actions more comprehensible and trustworthy.
• Collaborative Systems: Investigating how awareness allows agents in multi-agent systems to share context, coordinate actions, and work cohesively in dynamic and uncertain environments, leading to improved collaboration and efficiency.
• Design Patterns for Neural Networks: Exploring how awareness can inspire new paradigms of modular, scalable, and efficient neural networks.
• Synergy of Awareness and Learning Paradigms: Exploring intersections with meta-learning, continual learning, and reinforcement learning to embed awareness into AI frameworks.
• Real-World Applications: Case studies highlighting the value of awareness in robotics, collaborative systems, safety-critical environments, and adaptive user-facing technologies.
• Redefining Machine Intelligence: What does it mean for a system to be "aware"? How do these advancements challenge existing definitions of intelligence, consciousness, and autonomy?
• Ethical Dilemmas: Awareness in AI systems raises questions about agency, accountability, and moral decision-making. How can we ensure that aware agents act ethically in complex, real-world scenarios?
• Societal Trust and Acceptance: The integration of aware systems in daily life may evoke public skepticism. How can awareness enhance trust, and what are the risks of misuse or overreliance on such systems?
• Impact on Human-AI Collaboration: How will the presence of awareness in learning agents reshape human-AI interactions, roles, and dependencies in various domains?
• Regulation and Governance: The workshop will consider the policy and regulatory challenges posed by aware systems, aiming to propose frameworks for responsible development and deployment

Committees

Organizing committee

• Davide Bacciu - University of Pisa
• Cosimo Della Santina - TU Delft
• Ophelia Deroy - Ludwig-Maximilian University Munich
• Sabine Hauert - University of Bristol
• Hedi Karray - European Innovation Council
• Sadegh Soudjani - Max-Plank Institute

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to davide.bacciu@unipi.it