I recently attended the workshop Rethinking formal methods in philosophy (RFMP) at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. It was organized by Samuel Fletcher and Nathan Lackey. The topic of this conference was unusual and exciting, asking deep metaphilosophical questions about how formal methods might contribute to philosophy, and what place it has in graduate and undergraduate teaching. I came away from this conference feeling energized and with lots of new ideas, and I commend Samuel and Nathan for coming up with this topic and for their organization.
Here I want to focus on one specific aspect of this conference, namely the extensive use of video conferencing technology and other forms of online augmentation. Three of the invited speakers, Branden Fitelson, Joshua Knobe, and Catarina Dutilh-Novaes, participated with video conferencing technology. The university has a specific room to facilitate this. It not only has the standard technology to stream Skype but also microphones in the ceiling that pick up whenever someone is speaking so the person skyping in can hear questions clearly. These talks worked very smoothly with (except one very minor occasion) no technical glitches. Moreover, the technology also permitted remote participants to sit in on other talks, for example, Joshua Knobe saw my presentation on teaching experimental philosophy for undergraduates.
To give you a sense of how it worked, the image shows Branden Fitelson, Skyping in from what appears to be deep space, and the image at the top (tiny) shows the workshop room. Image credit: Liam Kofi Bright on Twitter.
In addition to this, Liam Kofi Bright live-tweeted the conference (see here and here), and I also contributed a few twitter threads on some papers (e.g., here). Moreover, Liam took questions from the Daily Nous initial post on this blog during the roundtable discussion. Overall, technology helped to augment and supplement, and draw in a wider range of people to the discussion than would otherwise be able to participate. For example, following the workshop I asked on Twitter whether philosophy graduate programs should still have a logic requirement and it generated this fascinating discussion.
In recent discussions I've had with academics, motivated by climate change and the role of flying in it, people have wondered whether we should just stop flying altogether for conferences, or at the very least drastically reduce how often we fly. This prompts the need for more possibilities for remote participation. As Catarina said, "to fly so far for a talk for two days, I can't really justify it anymore."
There is also the problem of people with disabilities and chronic illness who need to restrict their participation at conferences for health reasons. More than one early-career disabled academic I talked to about this has expressed worry that a reduced ability to present their work in conferences and workshops might damage their career prospects. There is also the problem of financial barriers, as many conferences do not pay all expenses even for invited speakers, and some only pay back expenses months after they are incurred. Using the hybrid model provides the possibility for disabled and less well-off participants, as well as people who are worried about their carbon footprint to engage in conferences that would otherwise require extensive travel. If the room is well equipped, remote presenters can not only present their work but also sit in with other talks.
This is not to say there are no costs. The three remote presenters apologized at the start of their talk that they could not be there in person, and also motivated why they were absent. Maybe in the future, if hybrid remote/physical conferences become more common, the norm will shift and people do not need to make apologies. This would be less burdensome for, e.g., folks who do not wish to disclose health-related reasons for not attending in person. The norm has not shifted yet, though. I am going to participate in a PhD defense across the Atlantic, where I will ask the candidate questions for an hour – I insisted on being Skyped in. They were resistant at first but are now happy to do so. I have also heard on more than one occasion that an invited speaker who requested to be Skyped in was uninvited, because conference organizers insisted everything has to be done in person.
Another cost is that those three remote presenters were not able to socialize with the rest of us. We did miss them at this conference (though were very grateful they could present via Skype). I don't want to underestimate the importance of live and face-to-face interactions. For example, at this conference I met three people I have known for a long time but had never before met in person, and we had some good discussions over breakfast, coffee, lunch and dinner. Realistically, I do not think that is an advantage that will ever go away. I can't really speak to how we should balance the goods of being able to meet other people of the profession in person with the demands action in the face of climate change, but at the very least, conference organizers can make sure that people at least have the option to participate remotely. Moreover, the use of Twitter and other forms of online augmentation can mitigate some of the problems of lack of in-person interactions. Like with other problems of actions about climate change, individuals taking individual action can only provide modest contributions to the solution, whereas larger structural changes (such as how conferences are organized) can potentially have more impact. The question of to what extent online interactions enrich or impoverish our lives continues (with recent studies showing no negative effect for teens). Still, hybrid and augmented conferences such as RFMP indicate we perhaps do not need to choose, we could, for instance, have people who live closer by come over in person while people who are further away skype in.
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