21-23 November 2017, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom
www.ACI2017.org
#aci2017conf
In co-operation with ACM and SIGCHI
In partnership with Minding Animals International
Endorsed by BCS
ACI is the leading international conference on Animal-Computer Interaction (ACI), a rapidly growing field that focuses on the interaction between animals and computing-enabled technology.
Animals have been exposed to and have interacted with technology for the best part of a century, in conservation studies, behavioural experiments, comparative cognition studies, precision farming and various support roles. But how does technology affect animals in their individual and social lives? How does it enable or disable their natural or learned behaviours? How does it influence their experience? And how does is impact upon their welfare? At the crossroad between interaction design and animal behaviour and welfare science, the emerging discipline of ACI focuses on:
– Studying the interaction between animals and technology in naturalistic settings, in relation to animal activities or interspecies relations
– Developing user-centered technology to improve animals’ welfare, support animals in their activities, foster interspecies relationships
– Informing interdisciplinary animal-centered approaches enabling animals to participate in and contribute to the design process.
This year, the conference theme is improving relations and contributions focus on the improvement of human-animal relations or relations between other animals. This concerns, for example, theories, methods or applications that have the potential to better support interspecies communication; to improve humans’ understanding of other animals, their characteristics and needs; to enable humans to take better care of other animals; to reduce interspecies conflicts and the impact of human activity on animals; to better supports animals in activities they do for humans; to help humans take better care of animals; to foster the development of ecologically and ethically more sustainable forms of interspecies interaction and cohabitation.