TU Wien DIGHUM

Overview Program Speakers Venue Application Organizers

Program

Program overview and lecture material.

On each day, Monday to Friday, there will be a morning as well as an afternoon session, each scheduled for three and a half hours with a coffee break in between. We plan to typically have two lectures in the morning and two in the afternoon. However, two morning sessions (on Wednesday and Friday) are completely dedicated to the group projects that will also be supervised by lectures. The project sessions will explore how the values of Digital Humanism can guide the conception of socio-technical systems, particular in terms of participation and democracy. The focus is on understanding conflicting goals that such systems face, drawing on multiple perspectives, and using an interdisciplinary approach to account for political, and social values (fairness, etc) and concerns. Internationally renowned and leading academics from computer science, social sciences, law and humanities present and discuss important recent topics and themes, including:

Foundational issues: Foundational and philosophical issues of digital technologies and AI.
Democratic governance of AI and social media: Regulation, multistakeholder governance, collective control of systems and platforms, policy-making, technical implementation of values and constraints.
Civil society organizing in the digital age: Political communication, organizing of protest movements, the digital public sphere.
AI for democratic innovation: Algorithms for participatory democracy (incl. AI supported deliberation, participatory budgeting, citizen assemblies and sortition…)
Digital sovereignty: Privacy and security aspects, infrastructure and cloud services, data sovereignty.

Preliminary Program (Times in CEST)

Lunch breaks are scheduled at around 12:30 - 14:00, great food will be provided. The Digital Humanism Summmer School 2026 will be co-located with the European Summer School on Artificial Intelligence (https://essai2026.eu/). This will give students the chance to join additional sessions.

Monday, July 6, 2026

  • 08:30 - 09:00 Registration
  • 09:00 - 09:15 Opening and Welcome.
  • 09:15 - 10:30

George Metakides plans to introduce a “democracy leitmotif”, detail abstract is forthcoming.

  • 11:00 - 12:30

Abstract forthcoming

  • Lunch Break (12:30 - 14:00)
  • 14:00 - 15:30

Excursion to the Austrian Parliament.

  • 16:00 - 17:30

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

  • 19:00 Evening Event

Planned reception at the City Hall of Vienna.

Tuesday, July 7, 2026

  • 09:00 - 10:30

Abstract forthcoming

  • 11:00 - 12:30

Abstract: Inspired by the political trilemma of the world economy that Dani Rodrik put forward about 20 years ago, this lecture explores a modified trilemma for the age of AI: geopolitics, democracy, and tech-driven economics are fundamentally incompatible. Is it true that, at best, we can have two but not three? The lecture first explores the underlying thinking from a structural perspective. We will then, interactively with the students, explore public policy options if we want to ensure that democracy is not the one left out.

  • Lunch Break (12:30 - 14:00)
  • 14:00 - 15:30

Abstract forthcoming

  • 16:00 - 17:30

Reserved time to work on your students projects and the presenation on Friday afternoon.

  • 18:00 - 19:30

Information fortcoming

Wednesday, July 8, 2026

  • 09:00 - 10:30

Abstract forthcoming

  • 11:00 - 12:30

Abstract forthcoming

  • Lunch Break (12:30 - 14:00)
  • 14:00 - 15:30

Abstract forthcoming

  • 16:00 - 17:30 Student Projects

Thursday, July 9, 2026

  • 09:00 - 10:30

Abstract forthcoming

  • 11:00 - 12:30

Abstract forthcoming

  • Lunch Break (12:30 - 14:00)
  • 14:00 - 15:30 Student Projects

Abstract forthcoming

  • 19:00 Reception at WU Vienna

Friday, July 10, 2026

  • 09:00 - 10:30

Abstract forthcoming

  • 11:00 - 12:30

AI systems increasingly affect society, yet questions of democratic control remain largely unresolved. At present, many consequential choices in the development of AI systems — from data collection to deployment — are made by a small number of decision-makers, with little public input or oversight. Current debates on democratic AI governance tend to focus on institutional and regulatory frameworks at the macro level. In this talk, I complement this perspective with an approach grounded in social choice theory, the mathematical study of how conflicting preferences can be aggregated into collective decisions. I argue that opportunities for meaningful collective input arise at many stages of the machine learning development pipeline, yet are rarely recognised as such. Social choice theory provides both a modelling language to make these decision points explicit and principled criteria - drawing on notions such as fair representation, participation, and efficiency - to evaluate mechanisms for incorporating collective input. The talk aims to provide an accessible introduction to social choice theory in the context of AI governance, requiring no prior background in either area.

  • Lunch Break (12:30 - 14:00)
  • 14:00 - 16:30

Project Presentations

  • 16:30 - 18:00 Say goodbye with drinks