Digital Technology transforms the world, from the individual level up to the ongoing geo-political powerplay. From an ontological point of view, it influences how we perceive the world and how we think about it. This transformation process started relatively recently and continues at a very high speed. We highlight some features of this process, which, besides its enormous achievements, shows also serious shortcomings and risks. The key issue arising is a two-sided one : Digital technology, currently spearheaded by AI, may help deal with some of the world’s multiple crises and make it a better place. At the same time it is part of some these crises (some even see it as the cause). We understand Digital Humanism as an approach to developing and regulating digital technologies so that they are used for the benefit of people and nature. It is a proactive approach that focuses on the integration of technical policy and social innovation for the collective good.

Renaissance Humanism served as a guide towards the 18th century Enlightenment which came in the wake of the 18th century industrial revolution. In a current context defined by a confluence of geopolitical turbulence and stunning advances in digital technologies spearheaded by AI , digital humanism can provide a guide both for future technological research and development as well as the choices we are called to make regarding the applications of technology as individuals and as members of society. What kind of digital world can we envision in which democracy, the rule of law and basic human rights, including the pursuit of happiness, are supported by technology rather than being threatened by it? How can we work backwards from such a vision and identify the steps to be taken by academia, industry and governments required to enable it as well as identify the traps to be avoided along the way? Utopia may be unattainable, but dystopia is a choice!

Groups of 4-5 students select one of several use cases.

Public Lecture by Virginia Dignum. Reception hosted by the IWM afterwards.

The lecture will introduce the concept and the basic technology of recommender systems (RSs), i.e., personalised tools that promote, in online platforms, algorithmically identified news, music, videos. We will discuss RSs value and the risks that user faces in interacting with them. We will focus on the role and importance of a proper evaluation of these systems, which is a mandatory request formulated in the European legislation (Digital Service Act). A new type of simulation-based evaluation approach will be introduced: it enables to easily estimate the potential effects (positive and negative) of an RS on the choices made by their users when they are influenced by the observed recommendations. The application of this evaluation approach will be exemplified in a particular case: sustainable recommendations in tourism, namely, how to tame over tourism and respect local communities.

Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence are nothing short of a revolution in computing technologies. They have become triggers of significant innovation opportunities that many entrepreneurs seek to explore and exploit for commercial success. AI poses enormous challenges regarding the ethical design of these innovations, both at the level of the individual and regarding their impact on society. In my presentation, I review calls for ethical AI and the challenges they pose for the entrepreneur. We take a closer look at AI principles that have been proposed to address the problem of ethical AI systems. While laudable, principles suffer from a lack of operational practicability. I present ways to address some of the issues systematically and discuss how to learn from the examples of other high-risk industry such as pharmaceutics, aeronautics, or medicine that successfully established practices of managing significant and residual risks.

I will explain a distinction between words and text we didn't need before but which we now need with today's automatic text generators. And I will explain another distinction we need to make between Artificial Flower AI and Artificial Light AI: Generative AI is a kind of Artificial Flower AI.

Digital Humanism as Infrastructure Layer

Generating code with LLMs is surprisingly and increasingly powerful, prompting the question if we can expect humans to be out of the loop anytime soon. My answer is no to replacement for professional software engineers (and trivially yes to assistance). The argument is twofold and relies on two necessary distinctions: that software engineering is not just programming; and that software engineering ranges from writing scripts over implementing websites to building complex interconnected cyber-physical systems. The main argument is that software is a design artifact that embodies many architectural and technical decisions – traditionally taken (hopefully explicitly!) by engineers who understand and design the trade-offs. That is, some human needs to say what they want and which option they prefer – and this is not the realm of machines. Secondly, and once again depending on the context, software development projects often fail because it is outright impossible to state the requirements upfront. Agile software development processes embody that observation into an incremental process where what one wants is fully understood only while the system is built. And again, humans want the system to be built, not machines. A discussion of the influence of risk classes and productivity gains rounds off the argument.

Details of this DigHum lecture see here. The lecture will be held online via Zoom.

Many nations develop their national AI strategies and establish AI governance models in ways that match their legal frameworks and existing regulations. This lecture first sets the stage with the findings of Center for AI and Digital Policy (CAIDP)'s annual index "AI and Democratic Values." The Index analyzes 80 countries for their strategies, practices and implementation of shared democratic norms. This will be followed by a discussion on the governance approaches, and a deeper dive into US, EU and Japan models will provide participants with alternative model perspectives.

Digital Identity Systems are on the rise worldwide. While global majority countries already have ample experience with their pitfalls and human rights implications, Europe just concluded its big digital identity reform without any concern for the experiences of other regions. Thomas Lohninger works for Austrias biggest digital rights NGO epicenter.works and has shaped the 2,5 year negotiations for the new EU law. This presentation will showcase realistic use-cases of the technology from age verification, online identification, customer tracking up to replacing CAPTCHAs. We will discuss essentials safeguards that attempt to make such systems of government certified personal data exchanges less dangerous in a world of surveillance capitalism and rising authoritarianism. The speaker lead the NGO coalition of privacy watchdogs that advocated for strong human rights safeguards in the EU legislation. He since became Chair of the UN DPI-safeguards Governance Working Group, advices the EU Commission on the technical specification of the new system, is in the Jury of the German government about their Wallet implementation. This talk tries to bridge the technical, legal and social implications of such systems and how society might be shaped by what some are calling the operating system of modern society.

TBA: Magdalena Ortiz on AI

Technologies – digital and otherwise – are gendered in their design and use. This session will explore what is at stake with this assertion. Drawing on examples from her own and other research, Wyatt will discuss how digital technologies can reinforce existing roles and stereotypes of women, of different ages and ethnicities. She will also explore the possibilities of designing digital futures informed by intersectional feminist principles.

I have spent the last 5 years working on a documentary film about the fight against fake news and disinformation. I accompanied investigative journalists from the New York Times and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists as well as computer scientists from UCLA and UC Berkeley who have built software that can autonomously detect conspiracy theories online. They are working closely with neuroscientists from UCLA, whose research with epilepsy patients has revealed a lot about how information is processed in the brain at the level of individual neurones.

HOW TO BUILD A TRUTH ENGINE took me on a journey from the information battlefields of our time into the innermost recesses of our brains, during which two things became increasingly clear:

First, those who can hack our information feed, can hack our mind.

Second, if we lose our grip of the truth, we will lose our civilisation.

Friedrich Moser

This presentation explores how everyday apps mediate soft surveillance, emotional governance, and algorithmic agency within digital systems shaped by colonial and patriarchal legacies. Drawing on feminist decolonial theory and African digital rights frameworks, it examines the intimate logics of platform power and how they shape digital citizenship in Africa. From biometric tracking to AI-driven recommendations, the presentation explores how apps construct and constrain agency, visibility, and participation, often reinforcing structural inequality under the guise of connectivity. It reflects on decolonial methods that foreground situated knowledge, relationality, and epistemic justice. The presentation centres intersectional perspectives on platform governance, affective extraction, and the politics of digital life in African contexts.

Digital transformation in the Global South must extend beyond access to technology — it must be intentional, inclusive, and context-driven. This talk explores how digital inclusion can be systematically designed to support sustainable development, with a focus on building interoperable systems in health and education. Drawing on over a decade of work in mobile learning, digital health, and policy frameworks, I will share how locally informed research and co-created solutions have shaped national initiatives such as the South African National Health Information System and ICT4RED. By aligning system interoperability with the lived realities of underserved communities, we can ensure that digital innovation enhances equity, empowers local actors, and drives measurable impact.

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The Means of Prediction: How AI Really Works (and Who Benefits)

Global Governance of AI – on the Interim Report of the UN AI Advisory Body

Project presentation