About BICA
Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures (BICA) are computational frameworks for building intelligent agents that are inspired from biological intelligence. Biological intelligent systems, notably animals such as humans, have many qualities that are often lacking in artificially designed systems including robustness, flexibility, and adaptability to environments. At a point in time where visibility into naturally intelligent systems is exploding thanks to modern brain imaging and recording techniques, our ability to learn from nature and to build biologically inspired intelligent systems has never been greater. At the same time, the growth in computer science and technology has unleashed enough computational power, that an explosion of intelligent applications from augmented reality to naturally speaking intelligent virtual agents is now certain. The growth in these fields challenges the computational replication of all essential aspects of the human mind (the BICA Challenge), an endeavor which is interdisciplinary in nature and promises to yield bi-directional flow of understanding between all involved disciplines.
The distinguishing feature of this conference is the combination of its broad multidisciplinary nature with the narrow focus on research and technological achievements, aimed at advancing us toward the BICA Challenge. BICA AI is famous for its friendly, informal atmosphere, for its spirit of excitement and opportunity, providing the fruitful grounds for the emergence of new key initiatives and collaborations.
Historical Background
BICA Conference Series was preceded by the AAAI Fall Symposia on BICA, held in 2008-2009. Originally, participants were mostly the members of the DARPA BICA Program of 2005-2006; however, the audience started expanding rapidly. As a result, in 2010 the BICA Conference Series was initiated as a separate venue, managed by a newly formed nonprofit: BICA Society. For 14 years, the BICA conference was organized around the world (USA, Italy, Ukraine, France, Russia, Czech Republic, Brazil, Japan, Austria, Mexico,China), demonstrating impressive success in growing progression. The conference was complemented by schools and symposia on BICA, in total making 15 separate events. The BICA Society membership reached many hundreds. BICA Society published a number of books and journals, some of them on the regular basis. In 2020 when the COVID19 hit, the BICA conference still was a great success in the cyberspace and since then assumed a hybrid format: offline+online. During its years the conference was held in cooperation with well-known collocated events and incorporated into itself many international schools, workshops, and symposia. BICA community today is a well-recognized phenomenon of the scientific world.
BICA Society Founding Members
James S. Albus
Tsvi Achler
Itamar Arel
Azizi Bin Ab Aziz
Rajan Bhattacharyya
Michael Brady
Cyril Brom
Suhas E. Chelian
Antonio Chella
Andrew Coward
Alan Diamond
James Eilbert
Chris Eliasmith
Scott E. Fahlman
Stan Franklin
Ben Goertzel
Diana Gómez
Stephen Grossberg
Owen Holland
Ian Horswill
Kamilla R. Johannsdottir
Hyunryong Jung
Ion Juvina
Kazuki Katayama
Kyohei Kushiro
Christian Lebiere
Alexandr Letichevsky
Simon Levy
Christine Lisetti
Riccardo Manzotti
Shane Mueller
Sebastien Naze
Devid Noelle
Rony Novianto
Andrew Nuxoll
Randall O’Reilly
Charles Peck
Arthur Pope
Vladimir Redko
Frank Ritter
Brandon Rohrer
Paul Robertson
Paul Rosenbloom
Alexei Samsonovich
Lee Scheffler
Michael Sellers
Terry Stewart
Andrea Stocco
Hans-Georg Stork
Eugene Surowitz
Jared Sylvester
Junichi Takeno
Vadim Ushakov
Rodrigo Ventura
Mark Waser
Roseli S. Wedemann
BICA Society Supporting Members
Ursula Addison
Olga D. Chernavskaya
Yuriy Gapanyuk
Ilya Popov
Sathyanaraya Raghavachary
Howard Schneider
Junichi Takeno
Atsuko Takeno
Evgenii Vityaev