• After a brief introduction into ChatGPT (for those who still think it is something like search engine), I will introduce and give examples of some concerns and opportunities from AI for journalism Democracy, to then turn towards the European legislator.
 
• I will discuss how the AI Act and the DSA tackle some of these concerns to give us citizens a new hope for a save and trustworthy future democracy with AI, but also give a behind-the-scene look how some of these rules were made.
 

 
• In this talk I will discuss the need for Digital Humanism and look back at the activities and development of the Digital Humanism Initiative originating in Vienna. Five years after the Vienna Manifesto on Digital Humanism was published, I will take a look at the current state and what needs to be accomplished still. I will also discuss relevant research activities needed in order to built responsible ICT systems.
 

 
• online (political) talk is increasingly harsh, uncivil and hateful, and content moderation is seen as a possible answer to this challenge
 
• content moderation is increasingly making use of (semi-)automated forms of changing online political talk, which brings challenges for both platforms and end users
 
• what is often overlooked is whether endusers actually value and understand how content moderation works. We bring in a novel user perspective into the understanding and design of (automated) content moderation
 

 
• Semantic Technologies to Analyze Stakeholder Communication and the Public Debate
 
• AI-Driven Factual and Affective Knowledge Extraction
 
• Visual Analytics to Better Understand Perceptions and Determinants of Well-Being
 

AI technologies in long-term care

 
• Measuring behaviour
 
• AI as socio-technical system
 
• Perspectives of older adults and carers
 

 
• This talk will analyze in how far ethical concepts of digital humanism are enshrined in recent attempts to regulate digital developments by hard law. Specific attention will be given to the AI act, the Data Act and the Data Governance act. We will try to assess these attempts and their (non-)success together.
 

 
• digital humanism has several components, and an important element is interdisciplinarity
 
• digital humanism should go beyond the anthropocentrism of classical humanism; it should be posthumanism
 
• digital humanism is and should be political
 

 
• Rethinking Recommender Systems: Moving beyond accuracy to prioritize diversity, serendipity, and fairness for more human-centered experiences.
 
• Personalization with Purpose: Investigating how AI enhances personalization while addressing challenges around transparency and fairness.
 
• Toward an Equitable Digital Future: Combining advanced technology with interdisciplinary insights to create a more balanced and inclusive digital ecosystem.
 

 
• Theoretical Perspectives on Digital Humanism in Research and Innovation: Drawing from critical data studies and Science and Technology Studies (STS), to clarify how Digital Humanism might actually co-shape contemporary research and innovation landscapes, emphasising the still very much alive tension between technological determinism (aka techno-solutionism) and human agency in knowledge production.
 
• Open Science as a Mode of Empowering Epistemic Practices: Exploring Open Science not merely as a tool for transparency, but as epistemic politics to demcratise knowledge production in line with concepts of Digital Humanism. How can Open Science practices serve as mechanisms for fostering inclusivity and disrupting systemic power asymmetries.
 
• Infrastructures as Sites of Intervention for the Knowledge Commons: Focusing on the sociotechnical infrastructures of knowledge production,we will discuss how they act as critical sites for intervention in the effort to collectively build and maintain the knowledge commons, advancing participatory forms of governance and collaborative action.
 

 
• 7000 languages are spoken around the globe, representing a remarkable share of cultural diversity; yet this linguistic diversity is increasingly threatened
 
• Following the agricultural and the industrial revolution, it is argued that the digital revolution has a similar impact on linguistic diversity
 
• Digital humanism needs to provide insights into how digitization impacts linguistic diversity as well as guidance and methods for how it can be preserved
 

 
• Emotions do not generally increase irrationality, but have a function (even for misinformation belief)
 
• Beliefs and misinformation sharing are socially motivated, not the result of gullibility
 
• Misinformation is a symptom of political polarization, rather than the disease itself
 
• Social media and its algorithms reflect political polarization, but are likely not its primary causes
 

Social media platforms and emergent communication patterns

 
• how platform architectures and users interact to create complex emergent macro phenomena such as hypes, protests, and (mis)information spread
 
• how such processes and patterns can be studied using methods of computational social science
 
• and how results of such research can inform platform governance
 

 
• inequalities in social networks affect social cepital and ranking and recommender algorithms
 
• we discuss methods in defining and proposing fairness in networks and network-based algorithms
 
• we bring examples from online social networks and offline networks
 

Sabine Köszegi

Man-Machine Competition or Symbiosis?
Implications of Antropomophism for AI Design

 
• Short History of AI Development & Two Visions of AI
 
• Anthropomorphism, Intelligence & Phronesis
 
• Design implications for a Man-Machine Symbiosis
 

ShapeTech - Shaping technology: biometric data, collective empowerment and humanization of work

 
• Contrary to popular belief, digitalization does not necessarily free workers from repetitive tasks or improve working conditions more widely. How digital technologies affect work is a result of companies’ specific decisions pursuing their (economic) goals. Consequently, the humanization of work needs to be consciously and actively pursued so that digitalization benefits workers.
 
• Workers often perceive digital technologies as a given and not as designed according to the aims and views of the ones who take the relevant decisions in the development and implementation process. This limits their ability to envision alternatives and make suggestions.
 
• By conducting in-depth case studies in two organizations, the ShapeTech project developed a new method to empower workers in highly digitalized workplaces to reflect on, discuss and influence their working conditions. The findings unveiled barriers to the humanization of digitalized work and showed how they can be tackled.
 

 
• Citizens views on digitalisation and its impact on political participation
 
• Citizen information processes and deliberation
 
• Repercussion on electoral and party competition
 

Perspectives on Human Data Interaction: Talking Charts

This talk will delve into different perspectives on Human Data Interaction, drawing insights from both experts and general audiences. Topics include:

 
• Data-centric sensemaking: How can we make data and models more understandable to different publics?
 
• Interacting with data visualizations: How do people encode, understand, and engage with the messages—and implicit assumption— embedded in data visualizations?
 

 
• In the first segment of my lecture I shall focus on the reasons of global authoritarianism and anti-democratic trends, with a particular emphasis on Europe and Austria.
 
• In the second part I will evaluate the results of a Stanford history education group on training to judge the credibility of digital information.
 
• In the final chapter I will discuss the potential of moderated town hall meetings to strengthen digital humanitarianism and parliamentary democracy.
 

 
• Explainable AI (XAI)
 
• Explaining explainable AI
 
• From XAI to AI literacy: On the democratic scope of empowering citizens beyond explaining
 

 
• A common critique of AI systems is their reduced transparency (“black boxes"), which often raises a critical challenge for ensuring that they function in a principled and fair way while complying with legal regulations.
 
• To address this issue we work on representing the internal structure of AI systems in detail.
 
• Additionally, we develop methods and tools for Auditing AI systems for several criteria, including some of those listed as requirements by the EU AI Act.
 
• An important question remains how input from social science (e.g., philosophy) can be infused in our work as part of the broader area of Digital Humanism.
 

Young People Against Online Hate

 
• Young people often encounter online hate speech, cyberbullying, and digital violence on the internet. Counter speech is an effective way of dealing with hate speech – however, it is rarely used by adolescents.
 
• We develop strategies to detect successful counter speech examples, to empower young users for counter speech, and to mobilize them to develop counter speech suggestions.
 
• Together with practical partners, we support young people in dealing with online hate.
 
• Producing youth-generated counter speech promotes young people’s online civil courage and sends a clear, publicly visible signal that toxic discourse will not be tolerated.
 

What is ‘digital’ ‘humanism’? An STS approach to digital humanism as the search for equity in more-than-human worlds

 
• The talk will unpack the notions of the ‘digital' and the ‘human' in order to add to understanding of digital humanism.
 
• The digital will be framed as material, as practiced or processual, and as ubiquitous. These features encourage us to study or think about digital technologies, and human interactions with them, in particular ways.
 
• While ‘humanism’ is important, it is also vital to expand our analyses and reflections to account for materiality and for non-human actors and worlds, whether that is the environmental consequences of digital technology development or the ways in which our technologies are entangled with our bodies.
 
• Finally, I will discuss the notion of equity as helping us to engage with the here-and-now ways in which digital technologies are making more or less liveable lives for particular people and groups.
 

Digital humanism in practice: VBE as method of implementation

 
• overview of principles of digital humanism
 
• background to the principles from existing literature on technology and society
 
• VBE as the method for digital innovation
 
• case examples from the City of Vienna
 

When: Thursday(!) 16:45-18:15

Where: HS1, Währinger Straße 29, 1090 Vienna