Intentions and AI Workshop
June 1–4, 2025
Our group will hold a workshop around the theme of intentions & AI, broadly related to the research questions detailed here:
- What are the criteria that must be met for intentions in complex systems—both biological and artificial?
- How can we adapt the most pertinent insights, tools, and models from the sciences that study human intentions to measure, characterize, and intervene on intentions in AI?
- What can AI models teach us about intentions in humans?
The workshop will take place from the afternoon of June 1st until the morning of June 4th, 2025 in person at Chapman University in Orange, California, USA. The event will bring together experts from neuroscience / psychology, AI research, philosophy / law, and related fields—from academia and industry—to tackle this critical issue in an interdisciplinary manner. The workshop will generally comprise a series of discussions focused on specific questions related to intentions & AI.
Scholars who confirmed their participation include:
AI Researchers
- Vincent Conitzer (CMU)
- Michael Mozer (DeepMind)
- Sagi Perel (DeepMind)
- Paul Riechers (Astera Institute)
- Adam Shai (Astera Institute)
- Kyongsik Yun (JPL, Caltech)
Neuroscientists, Biologists, and Psychologists
- Tom Clandinin (Stanford)
- Patrick Haggard (UCL)
- John-Dylan Haynes (Charite)
- Hillard Kaplan (Chapman)
- Gabriel Kreiman (Harvard)
- Anna Leshinskaya (UCI)
- Uri Maoz (Chapman, UCLA, Caltech)
- William Newsome (Stanford)
- Aaron Schurger (Chapman)
Philosophers and Legal Scholars
- Colin Allen (UCSB)
- Michael Bratman (Stanford)
- Pamela Hieronymi (UCLA)
- Adina Roskies (UCSB)
- Scott Shapiro (Yale)
- Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (Duke)
- Gideon Yaffe (Yale)
Funding from the Estes Fund has enabled us to open our workshop to up to 10 early-career scholars (generally graduate students and postdocs). We plan to offer successful applicants funding for travel, accommodation, and meals. Interested applicants should submit:
- Curriculum Vitae (CV).
- A brief statement (max. 250 words) explaining how you think that the workshop will benefit you and, conversely, what you expect to be able to bring to the workshop. Applicants who provide an interdisciplinary perspective will be preferred.
- A brief proposal (max. 500 words) for a topic of discussion related to intentions & AI that you think should take place at the workshop.
- Two reference letters that speak to your fit to the workshop, at least one of which should be from a current or former advisor.
Email material 1-3 above (CV, interest statement, and discussion topic), collated into a single PDF file, to ai-intentions@chapman.edu with the subject line “Intentions & AI Workshop: Early-Career Competition Application”. The reference letters should be emailed directly to ai-intentions@chapman.edu with the subject “Intentions & AI Workshop: Reference Letter <Full Name>”. The application deadline for all the material is Monday, March 31st at 11:59 pm (anywhere on earth). We intend to announce the results of the competition by early April.
We look forward to your application and to advancing the conversation on AI and intentions together.