The Robophilosophy 2020 conference, organized online by Aarhus University, took place on August 18-21 with the theme “Culturally sustainable social robotics”. The biennial conference started in 2014 and also the previous conferences have had themes very relevant to RoboCivics – “What social robots can and should do”, “Envisioning robots in society”. From our research team, Salla and Kirsikka attended the conference this year, with two paper presentations. The published papers can be found here.
The online mode for the conference had many benefits and only one clear drawback. Not needing to travel saves time, money and environment, while allowing participants to stretch their legs or even do some low-cognition household chores while following the sessions. The only drawback was the lack of socialization outside sessions, although having chat available during sessions was great.