Project Work

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming our world, raising profound questions about the nature of intelligence. Are machines truly intelligent, or do they simply mimic human behavior through complex algorithms? Can we create machines that not only perform tasks but also understand and learn from their environments? Is there a ghost in the machine? AI, with its ability to process vast amounts of data and adapt to new information, challenges our traditional notions of intelligence. We explore these questions to understand the potential and limitations of machine intelligence and its implications for our future.

Academic: Liselotte Hermes da Fonseca

Ever since man has been able to speak, he has spoken to others - including other things (dolls, trees, God, etc.). Man is described as a linguistic being and language as human (Sternberger). Talking to each other is described as the basis of human coexistence, of politics (Arendt). But what would happen if the others, the non-human ‘things’, suddenly would speak to us like humans? What would happen if they couldnt be distinguished from a human counterpart? Imagine that at the end of the Leuphana-semester you got to know that the teacher of your seminar was ‘not human’. What impact would this have on your speech? What influence would it have on your thinking and knowledge?

Academic: Robert Hoppe

From ChatGPT to self-driving cars, recent advancements in Machine Learning have empowered us to tackle increasingly complex challenges. This project will use examples of modern applications of Machine Learning systems ("Intelligent Machines") as a foundation to familiarise students with the difficulties of designing innovative solutions (based on Machine Learning) for real-world problems [i.e., technical feasibility, reliability, ethics & social dimensions] . By the end of the project, students will be equipped to identify potential obstacles in current "Intelligent Machine" applications and may even develop a concept for how such systems could offer novel solutions to existing issues.

Academic: Olga Abramova

Olga Abramova is an Assistant Professor of Information Systems, especially Data Analytics, at Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany, since April 2024. Before, she did her post-doctoral studies at the University of Potsdam and defended her dissertation at the Technical University of Darmstadt. Her research focuses on two broad areas: (1) digitization of the individual and (2) social media analytics for society and business. She is also interested in and has contributed to replication research.

Academic: Johannes Lohse

Are smart people better at cooperation? For over 50 years, the Prisoner's Dilemma has fascinated psychologists, economists, biologists, and political scientists as a fundamental model for understanding cooperation. In cooperation problems, a group benefits most when everyone works together towards a common goal. However, individual members can often gain more by relying on the efforts of others. This basic tension is central to models of human evolution and informs current debates on sustainability, democratic stability, international security, and societal transformations.
In fixed groups, where members interact repeatedly, the question arises: Is it smarter to cooperate? Do groups with more intelligent members perform better than those with fewer? Or do intelligent individuals excel at exploiting the group? Remember that you always meet twice in life!
Can computers help us solve the puzzle of cooperation? This idea dates back to 1980, when Robert Axelrod, a political science professor at the University of Michigan, hosted a tournament of strategies for the Prisoner's Dilemma.
In this session you will discuss real world applications of cooperation problems and will come up with your own smart strategies!

Academic: Arthur Seibel

In the context of soft robotics, embodied intelligence plays a significant role. This type of intelligence means that the robot’s body interacts with its environment, which can drastically simplify control. However, not every kind of embodied intelligence leads to a desired robotic behavior. In the focus area Intelligence::Machine, you will experimentally investigate under which conditions embodied intelligence can be classified as ‘good,’ ‘bad,’ and ‘ugly.’

Academic: Ilsemargret Luttmann

Given its apparent autonomous nature, AI is often viewed as an objective tool that helps to eliminate human bias. However, its reliance on big data and data patterns implies that it inevitably perpetuates the human biases and moral and ethical attributes embedded in datasets, which extend to Global South countries where Western digital systems are deployed. We will argue that the expansion of a Westen-centric technology based on culturally and locally (Western) based concepts of intelligence will reproduce and amplify this structural and systemic power dominance, which has further socio-material consequences on the continent. The question that we are addressing is how to conceive alternative, decolonial machine learning systems that take into account the diversity of knowledge systems, moral values and needs that prevail in the major part of the world. AI application can be designed in ways that are beneficiary to African community life and values.

“Intelligence” is an ambiguous concept in the context of “nature”. Intelligence and curiosity enabled humans to understand natural processes and ecological dynamics, and today artificial intelligence is a powerful tool to support and deepen this understanding. But what about the “intelligence” of nature and the “wisdom” of ecosystems? While we become more and more aware of the “intelligence” of animal and plant populations and ecological systems, our own intelligence often does not reach far enough to imagine the consequences of disrupting the interplay between the actors in natural systems.

Academic: Christine Heybl

Eco-criminality is the third largest part of global crimes and constantly rises by app. 7 % each year. This is also due to more and more regulations in the field of environmental and climate protection which makes it more likely to commit a crime against these new laws or guidelines. In a grey zone we can find greenwashing as a method to present a business in an eco-friendly way while the main practices are not changed. Can individuals as whistleblowers be helpful to detect these kinds of wrongdoing, dismantle and prevent it or do we need more powerful stakeholders like public authorities?

Academic: Max Irmer

Nature holds the key to solving some of the most complex urban challenges of the future. In this topic, participants will explore how cities can learn from ecosystems and natural intelligence to enhance urban resilience and sustainability. Through various foresight and future projects and approaches, this topic focuses on urban models that integrate nature-based solutions and regenerative design principles for thriving, future-proof cities.

Academic: Nike Hornbostel

The network of over 6 mio fungus is inspiration and future. We breathe in thirty to forty fungal spores with every breath.
The mycelium is a fundament of life and a sustainable network around the world. 1990 scientist researched the exchange process in the forest over the mycelium with the result of the wood wide web. Let’s learn and get motivated in symbioses with the magic and intelligence of the nature.

Academic: Rebecca Kandut

This project theme explores the potential of AI technologies to address the global challenge of food waste. It examines how AI can be employed to monitor and optimize food production and supply chains, focusing on maximizing resource efficiency and minimizing negative environmental, ecological and social impact. The project aims to discuss AI's role in developing a more sustainable and equitable food system.

Academic: Lukas Hogenschurz

Our current economic system is based on a linear one-way system where raw materials are extracted from nature, transformed into products, and eventually disposed of. This causes constant pressure on the environmental system. In the project group, students will discuss how a circular economy can decrease pressure on environmental systems and how knowledge from nature can be used to further advance the circular economy.

Academic: Myriam Elschami

The pollution of our ecosystems with plastics has become a crisis of global scale. On a global policy level, this is recognized and reflected by the currently ongoing United Nations negotiation process to develop an “international legally binding policy instrument on plastic pollution, including the marine environment”. In the environmental policy discourse, the use of biomaterials is often offered by various stakeholders as a one-size-fits-all solution to sustainability problems. In this project work, we explore what bioplastics are, how to critically reflect the term “sustainable”, and if bioplastics can be an intelligent response to address plastic pollution.

How do societies – consisting of millions of people – find solutions for urgent problems and how are they able to do so peacefully? How can we design procedures to enhance the exchange of perspectives and ideas to come up with solutions that are otherwise hard to see? And what role does information and knowledge play in this? We take a closer look to these and many other questions to understand how societies master intelligently the challenges they face.

Academic: Anna Sawallisch

Societal impacts of AI are often associated with Job losses and the spread of false information. In these groups we are going to explore the possible impacts of artificial intelligence on the global development focussing on its connection to political and economic inequalities. As AI becomes more integrated into daily life, as well as political and economic systems, its influence continues to grow. We aim to examine how AI is currently affecting or could affect existing political inequalities and what this could mean for democratic societies.

Academic: Valerie Scholz

Digitalization and the rise of social media have fundamentally transformed the flow of
information in society. On one hand, social media has democratized information,
allowing people to access diverse perspectives, express their opinions more clearly, and
connect with like-minded individuals around the globe. Many democratic and activist
movements have found their roots online, using these platforms to share ideas, debate,
and mobilize. However, while social networks may seem like public spaces, they are
ultimately controlled by private corporations with their own economic interests. This
dynamic raises important questions and challenges that we will explore during the
workshop.

Academic: Seraphia Heitmann

Daily life brings an array of unforseen moments affording changes, a shift of perspective or so far unknown solutions. The central topic of the seminar 'intelligence' reflected as social intelligence will be reflected as needed for our communication. As part of our day to day experiences almost everybody has somewhat an understanding of this. Our work and discourses will show the many possibilities of social knowing and communication based on language, mimics etc. A shift of perspective may occur due to daily experiences, the need for a renewed philosophical selfunderstanding, latest research, a meeting of minds with so far unknown cultures etc. Everyone may bring to the meetings his personal experiences as a basis to start off with.

Academic: Laura Hille

AI is all the rage. Where Silicon Valley prophets are envisioning existential disruptions for humanity, teachers and university lecturers alike are trying to incorporate a new technology into old frameworks. Let's talk about AI and ask what Large Language Models like ChatGPT can do and what their limits are. How can we work with the technology and critique them at the same it?
The groups will focus on three questions: Where is the current AI hype coming from? What is the universities policy regarding the use of LLM's? What are the ecological and human costs of LLM's?

Academic: Alexa Böckel

The idea of the circular economy is at the forefront of political debates, nationally and globally. Everyone is talking about recycling, sharing and bio-based materials and there seems to be a societal agreement about the necessity of closed loops in production and consumption. Surprisingly, what is often neglected, is the social dimension of the circular economy and the injustice connected to current developments. Although the knowledge on human rights violations and the imbalanced relationship between global south and north is wide-spread (even Coca Cola recognizes its role), there seem to be powerful mechanisms that maintain this unjust system. What can we do to use our collective intelligence as a global society to create a just transition to the circular economy?

Academics: Julia Matthäus & Guelce Korkmaz

Content governance refers to the framework that platforms use to set rules and policies regarding the content they allow. Content moderation involves enforcing these rules through human and automated processes. Both aspects are critical in controlling harmful content such as hate speech and misinformation. Poor governance can lead to dangerous outcomes, including the spread of disinformation, and regulatory scrutiny has increased as governments demand greater accountability. AI plays a significant role in moderating content, but human judgment remains necessary for nuanced decisions. Ethical challenges arise as platforms try to balance free speech with user safety, a topic explored in this workshop alongside the role of human reviewers in content moderation.

Academic: Gefjon Off

To enable equal participation in a democratic society and political system, ideally, all citizens should have equal access to knowledge about politics. They should be equally able to make informed choices, for instance when voting for a party or protesting for a political issue. When measuring political knowledge, researchers however consistently find that men know more about politics than women. Why is that? This workshop explores how different knowledge measurements lead to systematically different conclusions on who is knowledgeable and who is not. Learning from existing research, we explore creative ways to better understand and capture the political knowledge of various population groups, including women, people with a migrant background, elderly and adolescent people, and others. Students will focus on a population group of their choice and explore the kind of political knowledge that this population group has.

Are humans the most intelligent species on earth because we rule the planet? Or are we the least intelligent because we ruin it? What is different about the human mind compared to other animals? And what is largely similar? These questions have been part of heated debates for centuries. While some discussions have led to illuminating insights and helped us understand ourselves and our place in nature, others have resulted in severely negative consequences. We want to take a deep dive into the – fascinating yet controversial– world of human and animal "intelligence". 

Academic: Julia Prein

When we think about intelligence, we might picture classical IQ tests or academic success in formal schooling. However, what constitutes intelligent behavior depends upon the context. Growing up in diverse environments teaches children different abilities. So (how) can we understand intelligence without considering its cultural context? How does a family’s and society’s concept of intelligence influence the way children view their own potential?

Academic: Karoline Pöggel

How does my standpoint influence my understanding of this world? We will engage with the idea of reflexivity via exploring our own individual standpoint. A standpoint of a person is the perspective or position from which they view the world and is shaped by social, cultural, political, and personal experiences. Reflexivity here means we will make our position in the world explicit and therefore broaden what shapes our understanding of the world.

Academic: Carla Agha Ebrahim

Why are young voters increasingly drawn to populist movements? In this project group, we will explore the emotional landscape shaping youth political behavior, from eco-anxiety to social disillusionment. By examining the interplay of fear, hope, and community in political engagement, we will discuss how emotions could be better integrated into political discourse to (re-)build trust in democracy. Focusing on issues such as loneliness, future anxiety, and the rapidly evolving nature of political communication through social media, we’ll critically assess how focusing on emotional intelligence in politics could counteract authoritarian tendencies and promote pro-democratic values among young voters.

Academic: Heiko Wojtkowiak

Ancient philosophers as well as biblical writers reflect on the intellectual relationship of humans and animals. According to the Greek philosopher Aristotle, humans and animals are notably divided by the solely human faculty of reason (Politcs 1332b5). Otherwise, in view of Old Testament wisdom literature some small animals (e.g. ants) are wiser than the sages (Proverbs 30:24-28). The project considers the issue how to deal with such ancient voices as an input to the present discourse on intellectual abilities of humans and animals. Therefore, the students enter a critical dialogue with these voices to survey the potential that such a contention might reveal.