AI-2026 46th SGAI International Conference on Artificial Intelligence CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND, DECEMBER

THIRD CALL FOR PAPERS AND POSTERS

The proceedings of the AI-20xx conference series are now published by Springer in Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (LNAI), a sub-series of the distinguished Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series of conference proceedings.

AI-2026: Cambridge, UK, December 15th-17th 2026

Organised by BCS SGAI: The British Computer Society Specialist Group on Artificial Intelligence (a EurAi Member Society).

The leading series of UK-based international conferences on Artificial Intelligence and one of the longest running AI conference series in Europe.

CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS

http://www.bcs-sgai.org/ai2026/

AI-2026 is the forty-sixth SGAI International Conference on Innovative Techniques and Applications of Artificial Intelligence.

The scope of the conference comprises the whole range of AI technologies and application areas. AI-2026 reviews recent technical advances in AI technologies and shows how these advances have been applied to solve business problems. Key features are:

• Papers will be published by Springer in the Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (LNAI) subseries of the popular Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series (www.springer.com/lncs).
• Papers are invited in two streams. The Technical Stream presents the best of recent developments in AI, covering a wide range of technical areas. The Application Stream is the largest annual showcase in Europe of real applications using AI technology.
• It is expected that the best papers will be reprinted in expanded form in a special issue of an international journal.
• A mixture of full papers (maximum 14 A4 pages) presented orally and short papers (maximum 6 A4 pages) presented as posters. Papers of both kinds will be included in the proceedings.
• Prizes for best paper and best student paper in each stream and best presented short/poster paper.
• Invited keynote lectures.
• The first day comprises tutorials and workshops to provide greater depth in selected topics. (Separate one-day registration for this day is also available.)
• A panel session on a topical subject.
• An 'AI Open Mic' session to allow delegates to have their say about any aspect of AI.
• In addition to the formal sessions, the conference programme includes a welcome reception and a Gala Dinner.

AI-2026 offers a valuable opportunity to keep up to date with developments in AI and to share experiences in the practical issues of developing AI systems.

FAIRS '26, the eighteenth annual forum for AI research students will immediately precede the AI-2026 conference at Peterhouse College on Monday December 14th, 2026. The aim of FAIRS is to support student members of the AI community providing advice and feedback on their research plans and work. This event is free of charge for research students except for a contribution towards the cost of refreshments and lunch in the College and no conference registration is required.

IMPORTANT DATES

• Paper/Poster Submission: Friday 26th June 2026

This deadline is considerably later than for previous conferences in this series and will not be extended.

• Notification of Acceptance: Tuesday September 1st 2026
• Camera Ready Paper: Monday 14th September 2026

CONTRIBUTIONS

Contributions presenting original work in AI are invited for both the technical and the application stream. Contributions may be submitted either as full papers of up to fourteen A4 pages for oral presentation or as short papers of up to six A4 pages for poster presentation.

• Technical Stream

Areas of interest include (but are not restricted to): knowledge engineering; semantic web; constraint satisfaction; intelligent agents; machine learning; model based reasoning; verification and validation of AI systems; natural language understanding; speech-enabled systems; case based reasoning; neural networks; genetic algorithms; data mining and knowledge discovery in databases; knowledge representation, inference and reasoning; robotics and pervasive computing; qualitative and temporal reasoning; knowledge management; AI languages and environments; robotics and pervasive computing; large language models.

• Application Stream

Case studies are welcomed describing the application of AI to real-world problems. Papers in recent years have covered all application domains, including commerce, manufacturing and government, and every major AI technique. In addition to case studies and specific applications of AI, we would welcome papers that discuss issues such as managing the transfer from research to production of AI-based products. Papers are selected to highlight critical areas of success (and failure) and to present the benefits and lessons of value to other developers. Submitted papers should make these points clear.

• Short Papers for Poster Presentation

Short papers are intended for the presentation of work which meets the high standards of the conference, but which is more topical and preliminary than the work presented in full papers. They provide an excellent forum for disseminating new developments and latest work in progress, especially suited to PhD students. Work submitted in the form of full-length papers that fall short of the standard for oral presentation will automatically be considered as candidates for reworking as short papers for poster presentation.

• Submission of Papers

Final versions of accepted papers must be prepared in either Microsoft Word or Latex together with a copy in PDF format. Initial versions of papers should be submitted in PDF format only and uploaded to the conference website by the deadline given above. Instructions for authors and templates for both Word and Latex are given at

http://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-guidelines

In order for an accepted paper to be published at least one author must register for the conference and undertake to attend and present the paper in person. Presenting authors will be asked to register for the conference at the discounted speakers' rate when they return the final camera-ready versions of their papers.

• Tutorials & workshops

The Conference Committee invites proposals for tutorials and workshops to be presented on the first day of the conference. These should be directed in the first instance to the Tutorial/Workshop Organiser.

• Prizes

There are prizes for the best paper and best student paper submitted in each stream, chosen by the relevant program committee, and also a prize for the best presented short/poster paper, awarded on the basis of delegate voting.

All further information including details of the conference committee, program committees, paper format and uploading instructions is given on the conference website.

ALL CORRESPONDENCE SHOULD BE SENT BY EMAIL TO THE CONFERENCE SECRETARIAT:
sgai-conference AT bcs.org.uk

My source: BCS-SGAI

'Proper domain' c/o Machery 2017

On a visit to London 4-7th, in Foyles on Charing Cross Road amongst many desirable titles I came across:

Machery, Edouard, Philosophy Within Its Proper Bounds (Oxford, 2017; online edn, Oxford Academic, 24 Aug. 2017), https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198807520.001.0001, accessed 24 June 2025.

Philosophy and knowledge are in constant play: hide and seek. So the title's 'proper bounds' piqued my interest. I found a previous paper by Machery, also cited in the book:

MACHERY, E. (2011). THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS AND PHILOSOPHICAL KNOWLEDGE. Metaphilosophy, 42(3), 191–214. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24439937

The paper is technical (as 'metaphilosophy' suggests) with discussion of thought experiments, parity defence, but there is utility here:

'If we have reason to suspect that a physical skill or a psychological capacity is applied outside its proper domain, our confidence in the success of this application should decrease. If we have no further information about the circumstances in which the skill or capacity is applied or about how these circumstances impact its reliability, then, for all we know, the reliability of the skill or capacity in this particular application might be almost as high as it is in its proper domain, or it might be very low: that is, we have a reason to believe that its reliability is lower than in its proper domain, but we do not know how low it is. In these conditions, we should be reluctant to express much confidence in the success of the application of the skill or capacity'. p.201.

I'm hoping for an e-copy of the book, which avoiding even more screen-time, I won't read through (review - as I call it...) but I will search, read selectively and post again.

'New' citation of Hodges' model - Kennedy (2019)

This morning an alert from ResearchGate brought news of a further not so new citation of Hodges' model:

Kennedy, Harry G. (2019). National Forensic Mental Health Service (NFMHS) Model of Care. 10.13140/RG.2.2.30103.59041.

I've extending thanks to Prof. Kennedy, and have added the details to the blog's bibliography (in the sidebar). It is not as if Hodges' model played a key role in service design (care architecture?), but it is nonetheless marvellous to achieve this visibility.

This does make me wonder if there are others?

Any further news welcome.

'Writing Samer'

Molly Fairhurst

 

... across the domains

"Diagnosed with a terminal cancer, Samer Iskandar couldn't find the words to describe what he was living through. Instead, he proposed an unusual collaboration." p.33.

 

Individual
   |

      INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC  --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

 SOCIOLOGY  :   POLITICAL 

|

Group

"Samer's cancer^ is like all cancers in that it pitches the self into a battle against the non-self, - * "Memory, language, attention and cognition all erode to ultimately leave you somewhere east of your prior self and west of someone new." p.34.

- atavistic alien cells invading their host from within. But it is unlike most cancers in how directly this cellular plunder correlates to the personal one."  It is like all cancers in that its lexical field is that of topography, malignancies spreading, diffusing and gaining ground. It is unlike them in that these movements are finally technical, gears cramped within the clock of a terminal diagnosis." p.34.

^glioblastoma

*discuss

Youmna Melham Chamieh, Writing Samer, FT Weekend Magazine, 24/25 February, 2024, Issue 1,062, pp.32-37.

Illustrations by Molly Fairhurst

https://mollyfairhurst.com/Financial-Times (above source).