Welcome to my humble internet home

My name is Martijn van Otterlo and I'm an artificial intelligence researcher with a keen eye for ethical and societal implications of smart algorithms

(please keep in mind that this webpage is under revision, especially the tabs above (oct-2021))

I am an assistant professor in artificial intelligence in the Computer Science Department of the Science Faculty at the Open University in the Netherlands. I am a guest researcher in the Software Science Group of the Computer Science Department of Radboud University (Nijmegen, The Netherlands). My e-mail address at OU is martijn, followed by a dot, followed by vanotterlo followed by @ou.nl

I'm an expert in artificial intelligence, and more in particular reinforcement learning, utilizing probabilistic logical approaches to vision-action learning and computational logic. My second expertise is ethics of algorithms (also known as responsible AI): how intelligent algorithms change our society and values, in particular learning value-aligned behaviors.

Since last year I have led the full development of a novel Master programme (MSc) in Artificial Intelligence at Open University, which will start in february 2022.

a-team hannibal face murdock amy b.a. van ai team
Some current research activities of interest
Martijn van Otterlo and Martin Atzmueller (2021) A Conceptual View on the Design and Properties of Explainable AI Systems for Legal Settings in: AI Approaches to the Complexity of Legal Systems AICOL International Workshops 2018–2020: AICOL-XI (at JURIX 2018), AICOL-XII (at JURIX 2019), AICOL-XIII (at JURIX 2020), XAILA (at JURIX 2020). Revised Selected Papers on Hybrid Intelligence, Explainable AI, Law as Web of Data, Privacy, and the Rule of Law, Springer
Nicky Lenaers and Martijn van Otterlo (2021) Regular Decision Processes for Grid Worlds submitted
PhD committee member for: Advances in Vehicle Automation: Ethics and Technology, by Leon Rene Suetfeld (2021) Universitaet Osnabrueck, Germany
PhD committee member for: The Enchanted House - an analysis of the interaction of intelligent personal assistants (IPHAs) with the private sphere and its legal protection (2021) by Silvia de Conca
In the context of digital literacy and the public library organisation Cubiss, I appeared in a series of videos on digitalization, AI, and education (made by the same creators as this video), which you can find here
For Open University, I was interviewed about societal issues concerning AI
I appeared in the AutoWeek magazine, with a piece on responsible AI and selfdriving cars that display ethical behavior. (june 2021)
The glossy magazine Chapeau featured an interview with me on the societal impact of AI
This december, Open University will feature a podcast with me on AI, in conversation with Nynke de Jong, in the podcast series Over Denken

Current programme committee memberships
PC of International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR20-22)
PC of AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-20, AAAI-21, AAAI-22)
PC of International Conference on Automated Planning Systems (ICAPS-20, ICAPS-21, ICAPS-21 demonstrations)
PC of International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML-20, ICML-21)
PC of International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-20, IJCAI-21)
PC Board of International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-22, ECAI-22, IJCAI-23, IJCAI-24)
PC of International Conference on Knowledge Representation (KR-20)
PC of International Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS-20, NeurIPS-21)
The third international workshop on spatial language understanding co-located with the Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP-2021)

Some previous items


Co-organized the 2019 SIKS (national AI research school) day on Explainable and Responsible AI (Utrecht, nov 2019) together with Richard Starmans (SIKS/UU/UvT, Joris Hulstijn (UvT), and Jacqueline Heinerman (Deloitte)
Participated in the ethics of AI/data science panel at the 360 degrees of Data Science Symposium (Leiden, march 2020) together with Catholijn Jonker (TU Delft), Karin Jongsma (UMC Utrecht) and Aysenur Bilgin (VIQTOR DAVIS/CWI)
Programme committeeships at ICML-2019 and ICAPS-2019 (Learning and planning track)
Our paper (with M. Atzmueller) was accepted for the XAILA workshop on explainable AI for law, as part of the JURIX conference on legal AI. The title is: On Requirements and Design Criteria for Explainability in Legal AI. You can have a look here.
Invited talk at the Open University about the values of artificial intelligence, see my slides
Participated in the lunch debate on the future of robotics and AI at the EU in Brussels, during the 10th European Innovation Summit
I'm presenting decision-theoretic ethical programs at BNAIC-2018 and also as a poster at BeneRL
Guest lecture at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, on working with algorithms and value alignment in AI
Participating in the Digital Society Conference, research and education workshops on responsible data science
Participating in BeNeRL 2018 (symposium on reinforcement learning) with my ethics work
Together with Frederique van den Boogaart and Thomas Hantke we have a paper at Benelearn-2018 on customer loyalty and the prediction of redemption using machine learning
My brief overview on ethical issues in AI (with cool Lego pics!) appeared in the New Archive Mathematics (see ethics tab).
Our paper on reinforcement learning for e-health is presented at PRIMA (International Conference on Principles and Practice of Multi-Agent Systems) (see AI tab)
Our paper got accepted for the IJCAI 2018 Workshop on Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI), Stockholm, July (see ethics tab).
Programme committee of AAAI-2019, The Thirty-Third AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence
Speaking at the international summerscool on AI, Algorithms & Privacy on the topic of reinforcement learning and value alignment to build ethical AI systems
Programme committee ICAPS-2018 (learning&planning track)
Submitted a paper on explainable AI
I'm part of of the European Science Foundation (ESF) college of expert reviewers
Submitted a paper on reinforcement learning for intervention strategies
Invited talk at the National Library Conference in the Netherland
Programme committee of ECML-2018
Attended both AAAI/ACM Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, and Society (AIES) and AAAI conferences in New Orleans (February 2018) where I presented my paper on decision-theoretic ethical programs (see "ethics" tab).

I love books, science, martial arts, photography, Lego, libraries and much much more. Feel free to look around to find out more about me.