Recently, due to the impact of the epidemic, many academic conferences have changed their procedures, or postponed or canceled them, which has greatly hindered people’s communication since the 1920s. However, it may be time for academic conferences to change. The impact of infectious diseases, climate, visa difficulties, and soaring conference scales, and many other reasons have made the traditional conference mode no longer sustainable. So, in the new era, what new forms should academic exchanges take?
In the last few days, Cheng Gongfa, a teacher of the Department of Computer Science at Nanjing University, said on Weibo that due to the epidemic, this year’s WWW conference in Taipei will begin to prepare remote reports . This is another international top AI academic conference using remote reporting for epidemic reasons after AAAI 2020.
Note: The full name of WWW conference is the International World Wide Web Conference. It was founded in 1994 and is held once a year. 19%.
![]()
As Cheng Gong stated on Weibo, if the entire conference is scheduled and held smoothly, it can be considered as a new model for future academic conferences.
After all, whether in industry or academia, to understand the frontiers and hotspots of a discipline or industry, in addition to obtaining from journals and papers, the other most direct way is to participate in relevant academic conferences .
Participating in academic conferences can not only learn about cutting-edge research information, but also exchange on-site and get more academic resources. But the way of attending the meeting is obviously not limited to “in person”.
Recently, Yoshua Bengio, the 2018 Turing Award winner, also advocated reducing the number of offline meetings and increasing the number of online meetings from the perspective of reducing carbon emissions in his first blog.
![]()
Bengio mentioned in the article that as scientists and scholars, he has personal and collective responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions. Although holding conferences allows ideas from all over the world to interact and collide with each other, it inevitably increases the carbon footprint of air travel and the like.
So Bengio proposes to change the way meetings are organized to minimize air travel and reduce carbon emissions.
Actually, the online conference is not only of great significance for reducing carbon emissions, but nowadays the new coronavirus is rampant, the strict prevention of infectious diseases has also given us different inspirations.
I. Traditional conference mode is subject to multiple restrictions
1. Major public events such as infectious diseases
![]()
The most obvious one is AAAI 2020 , the first artificial intelligence conference in 2020. On February 2, the United States declared a state of public health emergency, saying “foreigners who have been to China in the past 14 days (except for green cards and immediate family members of US citizens ) No access to the United States. ”
Subsequently, it was reported that about 800 participants from mainland China will miss the meeting, which accounted for about one fifth of the total number of people who signed up for the meeting.
Responding to this situation, the AAAI organizer also published through the official website, and proposed other solutions based on “cloud participation” for the authors of papers that could not normally participate.
Obviously, under the current circumstances, cloud conferences are the best alternative to attending conferences due to major public events such as infectious diseases.
AAAI is not an example. In fact, not only in the field of artificial intelligence, conferences in other fields change the way conferences are organized. It is also urgent to deploy cloud participation.
For example, at an optoelectronics industry event in San Francisco this week, some Chinese companies were still on time before travel restrictions took effect. However, due to the inability of many Chinese companies to participate, the conference hurriedly re-arranged the venue and replaced some booths with plants and seats.
In addition, the world’s top computer security conference originally planned to be held in Beijing from April 17th to 19th this year DEF CON , also cancelled due to a new coronavirus.
In the early morning of February 13, the world ’s largest mobile phone exhibition MWC (Global Mobile Communications Conference) (Global System Association for Mobile Communications) also released the latest announcement on the official website, officially announcing the cancellation of the 2020 MWC originally scheduled to be held in Barcelona at the end of February. This is also the first time GSMA has announced the cancellation of a conference since its inception.
So, major public events such as infectious diseases are one of the biggest force majeure factors for the conference. It is inevitable to hinder the on-site participation. In special cases, if you still want to maintain the exchange of ideas and the collision of ideas, Academic atmosphere, must change the original conference mode .
2. Visa issues that have plagued participants for many years
![]()
In addition to major public events such as infectious diseases, visa issues that have plagued participants for many years are also one of the reasons why cloud conferences must be deployed.
As we all know, the top academic conferences are mostly held in North America such as the United States, Canada, etc. However, the “harsh” visa conditions in North America have been criticized by many participants, and in the past two and a half years, it has become more serious.
For example, in 2018, Maarten de Rijke, a well-known scholar in the field of information retrieval, was unable to travel to the United States to participate in the information retrieval summit SIGIR due to visa issues.
In the past ICLR 2019 conference, alsoA group of scientists have been turned away from the United States because of visa issues.
Canadian visa issuance is also very strict. For example, before the opening of the NeurIPS 2019 conference, Canada refused to issue travel visas to a large number of AI researchers and research students who plan to attend the NeurIPS and Black in AI seminars. . Canadian AI chiefs Hinton and Bengio also failed to resolve the problem after getting involved in the communication, which also became the direct reason for ICLR 2020 to be held in Africa.
Also, obtaining a visa is not an easy task. For example, you must first submit an application to the United States Embassy. Applications in countries such as the United States and France take one month, and countries such as Russia may take one year.
In some visa application appointment stages, 95% of the embassy may push your passport and supporting documents to the administrative department, which will take another 2 months. However, this usually happens to researchers and engineers, because from the government’s point of view, these people are suspicious and they may stay.
3. Too many attendees will make the conference experience discounted
< / p>
![]()
Changes in the number of participants in academic conferences on artificial intelligence
Too many participants are also a factor hindering offline meetings. With the popularity of artificial intelligence, the influence of top academic conferences such as AAAI, NeuroIPS, CVPR, etc. has become greater and greater, and the number of papers and participants receiving each year has reached a record high.
e.g. 2018 NeurIPS The number of attendees was nearly 9,000, and there was a grand event where the 11-minute conference tickets were ran out. The scale of the NeurIPS conference in 2019 has reached 10,000, and the ticket sales method has changed from the “first come, first served” principle to the “lottery” principle.
Too many people will have two impacts. The first is the limited venue capacity and limited service staff, which will not provide better service for the participants. In addition to the congestion in space, Participants’ participation experience is greatly reduced .
Too many attendees mean too many posters, lectures, and themes. This means that simply trying to figure out what to try and what to focus on is a challenge.
Although a large number of meetings can indeed lead to a lot of dialogue, on the other hand, sets up obstacles for dialogue On such a large scale, if there is no clear plan, it may be Will not encounter some “big cows.”
As more and more papers are submitted, and the need for review is increasing, the quality of the review is also different. For example, in NeurIPS 2019, some papers with genuine academic moral hazards also successfully passed the review process of this session.
4. Low carbon emission reduction
![]()
A “bomb cyclone” occurred on the East Coast, which prevented academics participating in the conference from moving.
As mentioned earlier, in his first blog, Yoshua Bengio advocated reducing offline meetings to reduce carbon emissions . University of California, Santa BarbaraScholars from the campus estimate that air travel to academic conferences and lectures accounts for about one-third of the campus’s “carbon footprint”, which is equivalent to the total “carbon footprint” of a city of 27,500 people in a year.
How much greenhouse gas will “contribute” to a flight? Let’s put it this way, let’s say you buy a round-trip ticket from Boston to San Francisco and need a stopover on the way. Then your trip will release 0.78 tons of carbon into the atmosphere.
International conferences that require long-distance travel not only contribute to climate warming, but are also susceptible to extreme weather. Those who tried to participate in the “Modern Language Association Conference” in New York City in January 2018 “span” class = “text-remarks” label = “Remarks”> (Modern Language Association Convention) can prove this. For example, the Bomb Cyclone climate in New York in 2018 disrupted the travel arrangements of scholars who planned to participate in the conference of the Modern Language Association at that time.
Obviously, it is very difficult to give up the opportunity of face-to-face communication. When attending the meeting, scholars can meet new friends, can appreciate the humane style of the conference address, and can have coffee and talk with people with the same interests … …. Yes, this form can establish a more authentic connection.
However, if the cloud conference mode enables participants to communicate and communicate effectively online, can the original communication habits and relationship cultivation habits be changed?
5. Traditional meetings take time and effort
![]()
Everyone knows that the management of the traditional conference mode is almost manual, so time-consuming and labor-intensive, the effect is very low , the conference groupThe weaving process is complicated and prone to leakage.
In addition, the pre-conference paper materials and nameplate preparation process are cumbersome, heavy workloads, and lack of adaptability. Conference process often consumes a lot of paper materials. When the agenda or materials change, < strong> The workload and investment of the conference team will be greater . Not only that, the information security of conference materials lacks a strong guarantee, and confidential information is easy to be leaked .
For the participants, it is difficult to keep track of the progress of the meeting and follow up the progress of the meeting; the lecture information is concentrated on the traditional large screen, it is difficult to watch from a distance, and it is inconvenient to interact in real time.
In the ideal era of cloud conferencing, data transmission, processing, and storage are all handled by the computer resources of video conferencing manufacturers. Users no longer need to purchase expensive hardware and install cumbersome software. Just open the browser and log in to the corresponding Interface for efficient remote meetings.
Relevant personnel no longer need to pay the cost of hardware equipment, IT payment, professional communication equipment, travel expenses, etc. due to a business communication. In other words, after using cloud conferences, users will no longer need to purchase, maintain, and deploy the conference system, and will not have any upfront capital investment. They only need to pay for the actual use costs and also break the time and geographical restrictions.
Second, the disadvantages of cloud conferences
I have listed some shortcomings of the on-site participation. Is cloud meeting the best alternative? Let’s start with the definition of a cloud conference.
The industry’s definition of cloud conferences is cloud-based conferences:
Cloud conference is an efficient, convenient and low-cost conference format based on cloud computing technology. Users only need to perform simple and easy operations through the Internet interface, and can quickly and efficiently share voice, data files and videos with teams and customers around the world. Complex technologies such as data transmission and processing during meetings are provided by cloud conference services To help users operate.
Domestic cloud conferences focus on SAAS (Software as a Service) mode is the main service content, including telephone, Internet, video and other service forms. Then the perfect combination of video conference and cloud computing can bring the most convenient conference experience.
The answer is no, because, as mentioned earlier, the main thing to attend the meeting on the spot is to cultivate feelings, conduct academic exchanges on the spot, and let students feel the academic atmosphere.
1. Lack of academic communication atmosphere
Participation in academic conferences often goes beyond meeting cattle, listening to reports, learning skills, and long-term skills. In many cases, it can give participants a “scholar” status to observe different cultures and The crowd, and even observe ourselves.
Only from the perspective of income, if it coincides with the time of the research, it is beneficial and harmless to promote such research on such occasions. It is very interesting to ask the other party about topics of interest and find common interests with different people.
In many fields, quite a few people are actually studying relatively unpopular topics. Attending academic conferences and speaking on the spot can not only let more people know your work, but if you are eloquent, you can also pull “academic passers-by” to your camp, and strive to make your academic results more valuable.
From the perspective of students, cloud conferences may prevent students from getting a personal experience and not getting a good exercise.
The purpose of the academic conference is to exchange ideas. You have one idea, and one idea. After the exchange, you have two ideas. In fact, the exchanges and demands of undergraduates, graduate students, and doctoral students at academic conferences may each have different focuses:
Undergraduate students The future research direction has not been determined. If they have more opportunities to communicate face-to-face with Daniel at the academic conference site, it will be extremely valuable for cultivating the next generation of academic newcomers.
For Graduate students , participating in academic conferences can exercise eloquence and allow their academic achievements to be corrected, instructed, and recognized by their peers. Not only that, they can also strengthen some foreign professors and build up their connections. If you plan onReading a blog abroad is also a good opportunity to learn about foreign conditions and meet big bosses. Afterwards, the boss who applied may know a professor who went to this meeting …
As for PhD students , it will be a great opportunity for them to begin to make their debut in the academic world and present their research results to the academic world. If you happen to meet like-minded people at the meeting, maybe you can accidentally get a satisfactory job or “harvest” to a group of entrepreneurial mentors and partners!
2. If the technology fails to keep up, it will lead to risks such as meeting failures and problems not being resolved in time.
The biggest problem of current cloud conferences is Online capacity and network delays. Although 5G is gaining momentum, it has unique advantages for solving network delays and data transmission, but there is no large scale For commercial use, the current network still cannot support the participation of cloud participants such as NeuroIPS. After all, unlike current live video streaming, cloud conferences still need to be implemented, and more so that each participant can get a participation feeling .
More importantly, can face-to-face communication in traditional meetings be converted into peer-to-peer communication in the network, that is, how can a student want to ask Daniel a question? Obviously, the current cloud conference has not yet broken through this technical difficulty. In addition, is it safe to transmit, process, and store cloud conference data? It is also something to consider.
How should a cloud conference be held?
![]()
Under the existing technical conditions, how exactly is a cloud conference held? Bengio has several suggestions in his blog:
1. Everyone stays at home and connects all over the world at the same time, abandoning the original situation of holding a large conference in one place;
2. Keep some face-to-face communication activities;
3. Guarantee the network quality of all conference websites, so that all participants can listen to the speaker’s conversation;
4. Ask the speaker questions using existing web tools.
1. AAAI 2020 Cloud Conference First Trial
The AAAI 2020 organizing committee is an effective attempt to adjust the meeting in response to the large number of Chinese scholars unable to make a trip. In the specific implementation process, the organizing committee recommends that the authors of the paper come to the venue to report as much as possible , There are 4 suggestions for reference:
1. If you ca n’t make a trip, you can have a colleague who can come to the scene speak for you;
2. If you ca n’t find a colleague who is speaking, you can also record a video (oral or poster) and send it to the domain Chairman;
3. If it is a 20-minute full oral, then the domain chairman will initiate a telephone video for remote reporting;
4. If you participate in the evening poster session, you can bring your colleagues to the scene; if you ca n’t find anyone, AAAI also provides printing and posting services for you, but a service fee of 96 USD will be charged.
Of course, this solution of AAAI 2020 is only aimed at some Chinese scholars who cannot make it, not a true “cloud conference”. However, AAAI 2020 has also become the first academic summit in history to be held in a large-scale recording + live broadcast mode, which also indicates the arrival of this new model of academic exchange.
2. The new conference itself is held in the form of “big” to “small”
![]()
The new conference itself is also an effective method, that is, change the “big” to “small” and try to “divide” A small conference with a size of 100 people, such as Tutorial, allows participants to selectively participate in order to meet the load of online video that can be supported by some current cloud conference platforms.
Currently, more cloud conference platforms such as Skype, Zoom, Webex, Connect, and GoToMeeting are used. Although it can accommodate up to 50 people, it can accommodate 250 people after arrangement and negotiation, and can also achieve group discussions. strong>.
Therefore, if the scale of each small conference can be controlled to a scale of about 100 people, even if the existing cloud conference platform is used, the conference can be “held” smoothly.
For the participants’ communication itself, it can be supplemented by the method of Building an online community , for example, the heavyweight speaker or Workshop and Tutorial organizers are named to establish corresponding discussion groups, so that Participants who have questions or exchange needs can enter the corresponding discussion group and exchange and communicate with the “group owner” and other members of the discussion group in real time.
3. Technology companies have a long way to go: they need to develop more powerful cloud conference technologies and tools
![]()
Although some remote conference software can work well in the remote office collaboration scenario, there is a big technical bottleneck if it is applied to large academic conferences.
The era of large-scale commercial use of 5G is coming, and VR technology is gradually mature. Whether or not to create an online virtual world scene should be the next innovation focus of technology companies.
In some virtual conference scenes described in some science fiction movies or novels, employees can enter the virtual meeting place at any time, no matter where they are, to greet and communicate with the participants around them. In the virtual conference world, the various departments of the company can communicate with each other in their own areas. If you need to communicate with the participants, you can simply walk to his area to communicate. In the virtual conference world, the participants You can discuss brainstorming with each other, PPT broadcast presentations, academic paper viewing discussions, video playback and so on.
As shown in the “Top Player” animation above. Just bring a gaming helmet and you can do everything you want in the virtual world!
2020, as the beginning of the 1920s, seems to be a magical year. But isn’t it a year of change? The National Cyber Class will inevitably lead to the vigorous development of online education; is it possible that traditional conferences will be canceled one after another? This is a challenge full of opportunities for both cloud conference vendors and organizations hosting conferences.
This article comes from WeChat public account: AI Technology Review (ID: aitechtalk) , author: Jiang Shang Bao Cong end