The substance of the symposium addressed the challenges in creating synergistic human and AI-based autonomous systems-of-systems. Recent advances in generative AI techniques (e.g., LLMs) have exacerbated the growing concerns associated with AI, held by researchers and the public alike, such as the risk, trust, ethics, and safety to the users and to the public from the operations of autonomous machines/AI alone in open situations. These concerns present major hurdles in the development of verified and validated engineered systems involving bi-directional pathways across the human-machine barrier; in this context, bi-directionality means understanding the design and operational consequences that the human may have on machine agents and the effects that machine or AI agents may have on humans. Current discussions on human-AI/machine interactions are unresolved or fragmented, focusing either on the impact that AI or machines may have on human stakeholders (including the relevant human factor considerations) or potential ways of involving humans or machines in computational or physical interventions (e.g., data annotations, human-machine behavior interpretations, operator-machine interventions). We believe the challenges associated with human-AI/machine collaborative systems cannot be adequately addressed if the underlying challenges associated with bi-directionality are not fully identified and taken into consideration.

There will always be interactions between machines and humans. When the machine has a high level of autonomy and the human-machine relationship is close, there will be underpinning, implicit assumptions about behavior and mutual trust. The performance of the Human-Machine team will be maximized when a partnership is formed that is based on providing mutual benefits. Designing systems that include human-machine partnerships requires an understanding of the rationale of any such relationship, the balance of control, and the nature of autonomy. Essential first steps are to understand the nature of human-machine cooperation, to understand synergy, interdependence, and discord within such systems, and to understand the meaning and nature of "collective intelligence."

The Fourth Symposium on Abstraction, Reformulation, and Approximation (SARA) took place at Horseshoe Bay Resort and Conference Club, Lake LBJ, Texas, from 26 to 29 July 2000, just prior to the Seventeenth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-2000) conference in Austin. Previous SARA conferences were held at Jackson Hole in Wyoming (1994); Ville d'Esterel in Quebec (1995); and Asilomar in Monterey, California (1998). The symposium grew out of a series of workshops on abstraction and approximation and on reformulation that had taken place alongside the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) conference since 1989. SARA is a meeting with an unusually broad subject area. From the earliest days of AI, abstractions and problem reformulations and approximations have been recognized as central to AI for reasoning effectively in complex domains.

The Twenty-First National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-06) and the Eighteenth Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-06) will be held in Boston, Massachusetts at the Seaport Hotel and World Trade Center, July 16-20, 2006. AAAI-06 will mark the launch of activities celebrating AI's fiftieth anniversary. Please join us for this landmark event! AAAI is pleased to announce the launch of the First Annual Artificial Intelligence for Interactive Digital Entertainment Conference. The conference will be held June 1-3, 2005 at the Marriott Hotel in Marina del Rey, California.

We are delighted to announce the continuation of the cooperative effort with AI Journal, giving unlimited access to the online version of the Artificial Intelligence Journal to all regular AAAI members. AAAI regular members can view and browse tables of contents, view articles published in recent issues of AI Journal, and utilize the current features available through Elsevier's electronic journal service. They may also view, print and/or download excerpts of reasonable quantity, provided that the use of such excerpts is personal and does not amount to or result in commercial distribution. Complete details were mailed to all regular members in good standing in January. If you have forgotten your membership number or need instructions, please write to us at membership04@aaai.org.

The AAAI News Column covers membership and conference statistics, reports on workshops, financial data, Council activities, and other ongoing activities pursued by the society Please send suggestions and feedback by electronic mail to AAAI-Office@Sumex-Aim Stanford.edu Spring Symposium Series In March AAAI sponsored the first Spring Symposium Series, intended to promote technical discussion of specialty topics in small-group meetings. As the following reports testify, the Series was a tremendous success Plans are underway for the next Series, to be held at Stanford University again next March. Suggestions should be sent to Hector Levesque or Claudia Mazzetti. The following are edited reports provided by the five symposium leaders.

It is also important to remember that having a very sharp distinction of AI A rise in real-world applications of AI has stimulated for social good research is not always feasible, and significant interest from the public, media, and policy often unnecessary. While there has been significant makers. Along with this increasing attention has progress, there still exist many major challenges facing come a media-fueled concern about purported negative the design of effective AIbased approaches to deal consequences of AI, which often overlooks the with the difficulties in real-world domains. One of the societal benefits that AI is delivering and can deliver challenges is interpretability since most algorithms for in the near future. To address these concerns, the AI for social good problems need to be used by human symposium on Artificial Intelligence for the Social end users. Second, the lack of access to valuable data Good (AISOC-17) highlighted the benefits that AI can that could be crucial to the development of appropriate bring to society right now. It brought together AI algorithms is yet another challenge. Third, the researchers and researchers, practitioners, experts, data that we get from the real world is often noisy and and policy makers from a wide variety of domains.

This page includes forthcoming AAAI sponsored conferences, conferences presented by AAAI Affiliates, and conferences held in cooperation with AAAI. AI Magazine also maintains a calendar listing that includes nonaffiliated conferences at www.aaai.org/Magazine/calendar.php. ICWSM-18 will be held June 25-28 at Stanford University adjacent to Palo 10th International Conference on Alto, California USA. ICAART 2018 will be held January, 16-will be held February 2-7 at the Hilton Sixth AAAI Conference on Human 18, 2018, in Funchal, Madeira, Portuga. The APA Technology, Mind, and Louisiana USA.

The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, in cooperation with Stanford University's Department of Computer Science, presented the 2016 Spring Symposium Series on Monday through Wednesday, March 21-23, 2016 at Stanford University. The titles of the seven symposia were (1) AI and the Mitigation of Human Error: Anomalies, Team Metrics and Thermodynamics; (2) Challenges and Opportunities in Multiagent Learning for the Real World (3) Enabling Computing Research in Socially Intelligent Human-Robot Interaction: A Community-Driven Modular Research Platform; (4) Ethical and Moral Considerations in Non-Human Agents; (5) Intelligent Systems for Supporting Distributed Human Teamwork; (6) Observational Studies through Social Media and Other Human-Generated Content, and (7) Well-Being Computing: AI Meets Health and Happiness Science.

This page includes forthcoming AAAI sponsored conferences, conferences presented by AAAI Affiliates, and conferences held in cooperation with AAAI. AI Magazine also maintains a calendar listing that includes nonaffiliated conferences at www.aaai.org/Magazine/calendar.php. ICAIL 2017 will be held 12-16 June, Twenty-Ninth Innovative Applications Thirtieth International Florida AI 2017 in London, UK of Artificial Intelligence Conference. IAAI-17 will be held February FLAIRS-2017 will be held May 22-24, 4-9 in San Francisco, California USA. IEA/AIE-2017 will be AAAI 2017 Spring Symposium Series on Automated Planning and Scheduling.