Bracing for the Enshittification of Embodied AI and Robotics

New Keynote Speakers: Prof. Maja Matarić and Andra Keay!

Now Seeking Panel & Poster Submissions!

AAAI 2026 Spring Symposium: https://aaai.org/conference/spring-symposia/sss26 

• When: April 7-9, 2026

• Where: Hyatt Regency, San Francisco Airport, Burlingame, CA, USA

• Web: https://sites.google.com/view/bracing-for-enshittification

Panels & Posters:

We are seeking presenters to serve on panels and give poster presentations. To express your interest in being a panelist or poster presenter, please fill out this Google Form by Wednesday, February 25, AoE (Anywhere on Earth). You will need to provide your contact information, the title of your poster or short panel talk, and an abstract. You do not need to be a paper author to present on a panel or at a poster session. Panels will start with short talks introducing the thoughts of each panelist then a longer Q&A session.

Interest Form: https://forms.gle/Dv92KcaLgQxk36Nb7 

Keynote Speakers:

• Maja Matarić, Professor, University of Southern California

• Andra Keay, Founder and Managing Director, Silicon Valley Robotics

Additional speakers will be announced closer to the date of the symposium.

Please find the full CFP below:

Overview:

In November 2022, Cory Doctorow coined the term “enshittification” to viscerally describe the process by which two-sided marketplaces (i.e., platforms that connect buyers and sellers)  have tended to degrade over the past decades, leading users on both sides of the market to experience a worse product. In its most basic form, enshittification describes the intentional decline of platform quality over time. Robots intended for home consumer use are often social in nature and use social interaction and relationship norms to keep users engaged. Turning such robots into two-sided market platforms, where users and advertisers both become targets of monetization, poses unique and significant risks. Unlike static smart or connected devices, social robots actively engage users via gaze, gesture, language, and dialog, which makes them uniquely persuasive forms of technology. This raises unique potential risks related to deception and manipulation of end-users. This symposium will not focus on enumerating potential negative outcomes; instead, we will use these examples to motivate and support methods that AI researchers in particular can use to address enshittification before it takes over the embodied AI and robotics fields.

Organizers:

• Paul Robinette (UMass Lowell)

• Alan Wagner (Penn State University)

• Ross Mead (Semio)

• Samantha Reig (UMass Lowell)

Topics:

Potential topics include but are not limited to: 

• Case studies of dual-sided AI deployments

• Privacy-aware AI

• Ensuring trustworthy behavior of AI systems

• AI Ethics/Responsible Computing

• Discussion of societal impacts of robots that enshittify.

• Consideration of the inequities caused by devices that advertise relentlessly.

• Discussion of a research agenda to anticipate and prevent the enshittification of robots that provide services (e.g., in public, in homes).

• Affective manipulation by consumer products and AI driven technologies

Format:

The symposium will combine invited talks, panels, lightning talks, poster sessions, discussion sessions, and working sessions. Attendance is open to all who are interested. At least one author of each accepted paper is expected to attend. 

Papers:

Submissions should be to https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=sss26 by February 13, 2026. Papers should be 2–4 pages in length and use the two-column AAAI format. Selected papers will be asked to present as a lightning talk, panel discussion, and/or poster. Check the website for more information.

Paper Submission Deadline: Feb 13, 2026 (EXTENDED)

Paper Submission Site: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=sss26

More Information:

Please direct questions to enshittification2026aaai@gmail.com.

Symposium website: https://sites.google.com/view/bracing-for-enshittification

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The Organizing Committee

* Paul Robinette (UMass Lowell)

* Alan Wagner (Penn State University)

* Ross Mead (Semio)

* Samantha Reig (UMass Lowell)