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Members of the RG Artificial Intelligence will meet for an interdisciplinary dialogue on the chances and limits of AI and its applications. Different disciplines bring different perspectives to the table and similar sounding concepts do not necessarily mean the same. Moreover, even if concepts are the same across disciplines, different fields might focus on distinct aspects. The workshop “Interdisciplinary Conversations on the Fairness, Explainability and Uncertainty of AI” tries to bridge these gaps and brings researchers from different disciplines in conversation about these three major concepts of current research on AI.

As part of the project "Lucid Dreaming, Now and Then", medievalist Racha Kirakosian (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg and Hamburg Institute for Advanced Study) is organising an internal workshop on "Mental Images in the Middle Ages and Neuroscience - New Perspectives".

The ability to see images before "the inner eye" was theoretically discussed in scholastic writings in the Middle Ages as well as critically presented in literary texts. Mental images such as visions, daydreams and sleep dreams played an important role in epistemological processes, religious experiences and artistic arguments for the question of finding and representing truth. Despite their importance for the historical understanding of the human brain, however, medieval concepts of "inner vision" remain under-researched. Can current findings from the neurosciences help to open up the medieval sources in a new way? And, conversely, can ideas from the Middle Ages inspire innovative experiments in the field of neuropsychology? The Hamburg workshop will address these questions by bringing together scientists from the relevant fields for an interdisciplinary discussion.

The sound installation Ubiquity can be heard daily from 1-12 December 2021 at the KlanGalerie in Berlin. It was developed by the sound artist and musicologist Miriam Akkermann (alumna of Die Junge Akademie) in collaboration with the programmer and composer Andre Bartetzki and the psychologist Eva Alisic (alumna of the Global Young Academy) as well as the psychologist and neuroscientist Philipp Kanske (alumnus of Die Junge Akademie). The starting point for the artistic work is a study on trauma processing in children by the psychologist Eva Alisic from the University of Melbourne. Aspects of the study are brought to life sonically on 18 Plexiglas panels equipped with transducers.

The social brain

How we understand what others think and feel

Philipp Kanske, Speaker of Die Junge Akademie and psychologist and neuroscientist at the Technical University of Dresden, visits the Deutsches Hygiene Museum Dresden as part of the event series diejungeakademie@.

How do we understand what other people think? How do we manage to empathise with others? Our ability to move in social communities depends on having access to these inner, unobservable states of others. The evening will highlight how social neuroscience explores our brain's ability to empathise and adopt perspective. Does the brain reflect what is going on in others? Or does it build abstract theories? People also differ greatly in how well they can think and feel and how problems contribute to the development of mental disorders. During the evening, we will briefly try out practical ways of practising these skills.