News

The Turriano ICOHTEC Prize (formerly ICOHTEC Prize for Young Scholars) is sponsored by the Juanelo Turriano Foundation and consists of 2,500 Euro. The prize winning book will be presented and discussed at a special session of the next ICOHTEC symposium, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 23-29 July 2017 (http://www.icohtec.org/annual-meeting-2017.html [1]). An additional 500 Euro is available to the winner in support of travelling to the conference to receive the prize.

ICOHTEC, the International Committee for the History of Technology, is interested in the history of technology, focusing on technological development as well as its relationship to science, society, economy, culture and the environment. The history of technology covers all periods of human history and all populated areas. There is no limitation as to theoretical or methodological approaches.

Eligible for the prize are original book-length works in any of the official ICOHTEC languages (English, French, German, Russian or Spanish) in the history of technology: published or unpublished Ph.D. dissertations or other monographs written by scholars who, when applying for the prize, are not older than 37 years. Articles and edited anthologies are not eligible.

For the 2017 Turriano ICOHTEC Prize (http://www.icohtec.org/resources-prizes-turriano-icohtec.html [2]) please send an electronic copy (Pdf or Word) of the work you wish to be considered for the prize to each of the three Prize Committee members. (Note: Hard copies are only accepted for published works not available electronically.) YOUR SUBMISSIONS MUST BE EMAILED NO LATER THAN FRIDAY, 3 FEBRUARY 2017. If your book is in Spanish or Russian, please also supply a summary in English, French or German of about 4,500 words. In that case, the prize committee will find additional members, who are familiar with the language in which your book is written. Please also include an abstract of no more than a half-page in length.

If the work is a Ph.D. thesis, it should have been accepted by your university in 2015 or 2016; if it is a published work, the year of publication should be 2015 or 2016. The submission should be accompanied by a CV (indicating also the date of birth) and, if applicable, a list of publications. Applicants are free to add references or reviews on the work submitted.

Any materials sent to the prize committee will not be returned.

Send a complete application by email to each of the following Prize Committee members:

Dr. Jeremy Kinney, Prize Committee Chair
Curator, Aeronautics Department Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum P.O. 37012, MRC 312 Washington, DC 20013-7012 USA E-mail: kinneyj@si.edu

Dr. Yoel Bergman Associate Researcher Cohen Institute, Tel-Aviv University 20 Hatzmaut st. Herzliya 46789 Israel E-mail: yoelb@protalix.com, bergm@post.tau.ac.il

Dr. Irina Gouzevitch Centre Maurice Halbwachs École Normale Supérieure 48, boulevard Jourdan 75014 PARIS E-mail: igouzevitch@ens.fr

Dr. Klaus Staubermann Principal Curator of Technology National Museums of Scotland Chambers Street Edinburgh EH1 1JF UK E-mail: K.Staubermann@nms.ac.uk

GUEST EDITORS

Marcello D’Agostino (University of Milan, Italy) and Massimo Durante (University of Turin, Italy)

INTRODUCTION
In our information societies, we increasingly delegate tasks andalgorithms. Their increased intelligence, autonomous behavior and connectivity are changing crucially the life conditions of human beings as well as altering traditional concepts and ways of understanding reality. Algorithms are directed to solve problems that are not always detectable in their own relevance and timeliness. They are also meant to solve those problems through procedures that are not always visible and assessable in their own. In addition, technologies based on algorithmic procedures more and more infer personal information from aggregated data, thus profiling human beings and anticipating their expectations, views and behaviors. This may have normative, if not discriminatory, consequences. While algorithmic procedures and applications are meant to serve human needs, they risk to create an environment in which human beings tend to develop adaptive strategies by conforming their behaviour to the expected output of the procedures, with serious distortive effects. Against this backdrop, little room is often left for a process of rational argumentation able to challenge the results of algorithmic procedures by putting into question some of their hidden assumptions or by taking into account some neglected aspects of the problems under consideration. At the same time, it is widely recognized that scientific and social advances crucially depend on such an open and free critical discussion.

TOPICS
The aim of this special issue of Philosophy & Technology is to explore questions about the governance of algorithms in light of the technological dependence of our information societies. We ask how to face theoretical and practical challenges in order to assure that technological innovations go hand in hand with human needs, beliefs and expectations. We solicit the submission of papers from different disciplines (law, ethics, economics, computer science, social studies, epistemology and philosophy of science) to address questions such as:

· How to deal with the “knowledge problem” (as Franck Pasquale put it), i.e., with the openness, transparency and fairness of algorithmic procedures and applications?
· How to govern those algorithmic procedures and applications once we delegate them the accomplishment of tasks or the solution of problems?
· By which standards the relevance and the timeliness of problems as well as the efficiency and the legitimacy of solutions are measured?
· Is the extensive functioning of automated systems, devices and agents based on algorithms able to impair human freedom and autonomy, free critical discussion and reflexivity?

TIMETABLE
December 19, 2016: Deadline for paper submissions
February 13, 2017: Deadline reviews papers
March 13, 2017: Deadline revised papers
April, 2017: Publication of accepted papers

SUBMISSION DETAILS
To submit a paper for this special issue, authors should go to the journal’s Editorial Manager http://www.editorialmanager.com/phte/
The author (or a corresponding author for each submission in case of co- authored papers) must register into EM.

The author must then select the special article type: ” The Governance of Algorithms” from the selection provided in the submission process. This is needed in order to assign the submissions to the Guest Editors.
Submissions will then be assessed according to the following procedure:
New Submission => Journal Editorial Office => Guest Editor(s) => Reviewers => Reviewers’ Recommendations => Guest Editor(s)’ Recommendation => Editor-in-Chief’s Final Decision => Author Notification of the Decision.
The process will be reiterated in case of requests for revisions.

For any further information please contact:

GUEST EDITOR’S CONTACT DETAILS

Marcello D’Agostino: marcello.dagostino@unimi.it

Massimo Durante: massimo.durante@unito.it