AAAI-17 Video Competition

The Thirty-First Conference on Artificial Intelligence
February 4–9, 2017, San Francisco, California USA

Call for Video Submissions

Timetable for Authors

Submission Deadline: December 7, 2016
Reviewing Decision Notifications and Award Nominations: December 21, 2016
Final Version Due: January 11, 2016
Screening and Award Presentations: February 8, 2017 (tentative)

AAAI is pleased to announce the continuation of the AAAI Video Competition, now entering its eleventh year. The video competition will be held in conjunction with the AAAI-17 conference in San Francisco, California, USA, February 4-9, 2017.

At the award ceremony, authors of award-winning videos will be presented with "Shakeys", trophies named in honour of SRI's Shakey robot and its pioneering video. Top videos will be screened during the award ceremony and throughout the conference.

The goal of the competition is to show the world how much fun AI is by documenting exciting artificial intelligence advances in research, education, and application. View previous entries and award winners at the video website or watch last year's videos on YouTube.

The rules are simple: Compose a short video about an exciting AI project, and narrate it so that it is accessible to a broad online audience. We strongly encourage student participation.

To increase reach, select videos will be uploaded to YouTube and promoted through social media (twitter, facebook, g+) and major blogs in AI and robotics. Last year's videos were viewed over 1 million times!

We will also be running a "People's Choice Award" where viewers on internet can vote for their favorite AI video.

The AAAI Video Competition is also an ideal opportunity to give further visibility to contributions presented at AAAI-17. We therefore welcome videos associated with manuscripts submitted to AAAI-17, and will make sure to publicize your paper in the video proceedings and during the award ceremony.

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Video Format and Content

Either 1 minute (max) short video or a 5 minute (max) long video, with English narration (or English subtitles). Consider combining screen shots, interviews, and video of a system in action. Make the video self-contained, so that newcomers to AI can understand and learn from it. We encourage a good sense of humor, but will only accept submissions with serious AI content. For example, we welcome submissions of videos that accomplish the following:

Highlight a research topic — contemporary or historic, your own or from another group
Introduce viewers to an exciting new AI-related technology
Provide a window into the research activities of a laboratory and/or senior researcher
Attract prospective students to the field of AI
Explain AI concepts — your video could be used in the classroom

Please note that this list is not exhaustive. Novel ideas for AI-based videos, including those not necessarily based on a "system in action" are encouraged. No matter what your choice, creativity is encouraged! (Please note: The authors of previous, award-winning videos typically used humor, background music, and carefully selected movie clips to make their presentations come alive.)

Please also note that videos should contain only material for which the authors own copyright. Clips from films or television, and music for soundtrack, should only be used if copyright permission has been granted by the copyright holders, and this written permission accompanies the video submission.

Submission Instructions

Submit your video by making it available for download on a (preferably password-protected) dropbox, ftp or website. Once you have done so, please fill out the submission form and send it to us by email submission@aaaivideos.org. All submissions are due no later than November 15, 2016.

Review and Award Process

Submitted videos will be peer-reviewed by members of the programme committee according to the criteria below. Videos that receive positive reviews will be accepted for publication in the AAAI Video Competition proceedings. Select videos will also be uploaded to Youtube, promoted through social media, and featured on the dedicated website. The best videos will be nominated for awards. Winners will be revealed at the award ceremony during AAAI-17.

All authors of accepted videos will be required to sign a distribution license form.

Review criteria includes the following:

Relevance to AI (research or application)
Excitement generated by the technology presented
Educational content
Entertainment value
resentation (cinematography, narration, soundtrack, production values)

Awards

Trophies ("Shakeys") will be awarded.

Award Categories include Best Video, Best Short Video, Best Student Video, People's Choice Award, Best Robot Video, and Most Entertaining Video. (Categories may be changed at the discretion of the cochairs.)