Digital Complexity: De-Anthropological Trends in Computing, AI, and Robotics - Gabriele Gramelsberger (Aachen)
2025-10-22 17:00 - 18:30 (Europe/Berlin) | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
‼️ Unfortunately, tonight’s lecture by Gabriele Gramelsberger has to be canceled due to illness.
We hope to see you next week for Anna Tuschling’s lecture on “Digitality as a Triad: From the Love Letter to Emotion AI”.
Abstract:
Current developments in the fields of simulation and artificial intelligence (AI) have shown that the complexity of digital tools has exceeded the level of human understanding. We can no longer comprehend, understand or explain the results that AI delivers. Even AI deceptions and hallucinations are now almost impossible to detect. This raises the question of the relationship between humans and their technology anew. Are technologies as instruments useful extensions of human capabilities, as it was understood in the classical philosophy of technology, or are we now extensions of our technologies? Will AI dominate and manipulate us in the near future?
This event is part of our winter term 2025/26 Lecture Series Digital Complexity: Beyond Human Understanding.
If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Digitality as a Triad: From the Love Letter to Emotion AI - Anna Tuschling (Bochum)
2025-10-29 17:00 - 18:30 | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Abstract:
The lecture presents various historical and contemporary concepts of digitality that highlight the three characteristics of digital systems: discreteness, arbitrariness, and systematicity. In short, digitality is often understood as a triad that applies not only to modern electronic computers but also to analog sign and writing systems. The lecture examines this form of digital complexity in terms of its epistemic and ontological status on the one hand, and in relation to historical changes in the coding of qualities such as affectivity and emotionality on the other. Although digitality as a triad allows us to draw a line from love letters to emotional AI as historically varying forms of coding, it by no means precludes a critique of AI. Rather, systematically focusing on digital complexity helps us understand how emotions are to be made computable and enables us in the humanities to define more clearly what “emotion” and “affect” mean in the approaches of affective computing and emotion AI.
This event is part of our winter term 2025/26 Lecture Series Digital Complexity: Beyond Human Understanding.
If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Kick-off Event: Freedom of Research: A European Summit – Europe in Times of Division
2025-11-05 14:00 - 17:00 | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
We cordially invite you to our kick-off event for the Freedom of Research Summit 2025, featuring an online talk by Ines Pohl, the Washington Bureau Chief at Deutsche Welle.
Program:
14:00–14:15: Welcome remarks
14:15–15:00: Talk by Ines Pohl (via Zoom)
15:00–15:30: Questions and discussion
15:30–15:45: Coffee break
15:45–16:45: World Café
16:45–17:00: Summary and end
Abstract:
The United States has long been a beacon for freedom of research and expression. People from around the globe have come to this country to enjoy high-quality laboratories, collaborate with international colleagues, and thrive in an ideal environment for brilliant minds. However, this landscape has changed dramatically since Donald Trump’s second term. Universities are facing challenges and lawsuits, while students and faculty are increasingly concerned about their status, often hesitant to speak on camera due to fears about the evolving work environment.
Ines Pohl, a Nieman Fellow who studied at Harvard for a year, has been covering these changes in the country for many years. She has engaged with professors and students on campus and, as a White House foreign press pooler, has had the opportunity to experience Donald Trump firsthand in the Oval Office.
In her talk, she will share her insights on what makes Trump still successful, what the world can learn from his rise, and how individuals can stand firm in their beliefs without resorting to self-censorship out of fear of retribution.
If you would like to attend, please send a short email to events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Freedom of Research: A European Summit – Europe in Times of Division
2025-11-06 09:00 - 17:00 | RWTH Aachen University – Super C, Templergraben 57, Aachen, 52062
Europe stands at a crossroads: Political polarization, disinformation, and social fragmentation threaten the cohesion of our continent. National interests clash, while external crises put increasing pressure on our democracies. At the same time, science is under strain – facing targeted disinformation, political interference, and restrictions on academic freedom. How can we uphold shared values, safeguard scientific exchange, and strengthen trust in European institutions in times of division?
Under the motto “Europe in Times of Divison”, the Summit will explore these pressing questions in various event formats and seek ways to build bridges – between nations, generations, and social groups, as well as between politics, business, and science.
The Summit has three parts: Starting with a festive evening event on November 5, from 7:00 to 10:00 pm in the Coronation Hall in Aachen Town Hall. Following with a symposium on the next day on November 6, from 9:30 am to 5:30 pm in the Generali-Saal of SuperC at RWTH Aachen University. And ending with the Stand-up FoR Science NIGHT on 6 November, starting at 6:30 pm at the Apollo Bar & Kino, Aachen.
For more information about the program, check out the event website.
The Summit is organized by the Charlemagne Prize Foundation and RWTH Aachen University’s Knowledge Hub and Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research (c:o/re).

Computer Science and Computer Use in Public Administration in Switzerland (1960-1984) - Ricky Wichum
2025-11-12 17:00 - 18:30 | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Abstract:
In my presentation, I examine the digital culture of public administration in Switzerland from 1960 to 1990. The perspective on Switzerland is significant for the history of computing because the country lacks its own computer industry, but has an internationally well-connected computer science department at ETH Zurich. As I will demonstrate, numerous formal and informal interactions took place between ETH’s computer science department and government agencies, which significantly influenced both sides’ work with computers.
This presentation focuses on debates about data protection in Switzerland during the mid-1970s. I argue that data protection can be seen as a trading zone between academic computer science and administrative computer use. Despite their different interests, both sides agree to cooperate for a time. While the administration was eager to avoid federal laws and relied on the data protection mechanisms of the computer itself (and the computer scientists who promoted trust in the computer with public data), the academics used the bureaucratic routines of data processing and data protection as inspiration for teaching and research in the newly established discipline. Finally, I would like to speculate on whether elements of a political theory of digital societies can be found in the administrative knowledge of computer science.
This event is part of our winter term 2025/26 Lecture Series Digital Complexity: Beyond Human Understanding.
If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Stochastic Systems - Dirk Baecker (Friedrichshafen)
2025-11-26 17:00 - 18:30 | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Abstract:
Digital complexity eludes human understanding not only because it is based on the synchronization of incommensurable systems, but also because each of these systems operates stochastically. We owe this insight to the “synthetic intelligence” (Brian Cantwell Smith) of machine learning models. An initially random variation of model assumptions enables the discovery and description of chance-dependent structures of an object or field ‘out there’. Stochastic systems “tame” (Ian Hacking) chance with the help of chance. This may apply not only to artificial systems, but also to neural, mental, and social systems. And perhaps their stochasticity is the condition of possibility for their synchronization, which can only ever be temporary. The lecture outlines a basic understanding of technology, society, consciousness, and the brain in order to plausibly demonstrate that we are dealing with stochastic systems here. It discusses three concepts that can be used to describe the synchronization of these systems. The concept of information comes from computer science and formulates a relational understanding of information. The concept of feedback comes from cybernetics and brings the observer into play. And the concept of chance comes from stochastics and establishes a medial as well as formal understanding of reality. Digital complexity arises from the unavailability of the difference between the systems involved.
This event is part of our winter term 2025/26 Lecture Series Digital Complexity: Beyond Human Understanding.
If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Green Work and Environmental Knowledge
2025-11-27 10:00 - 19:00 | Stadtpalais, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Abstract:
What is green work, who are green workers, and how are material cultures of practice and work and sustainable-society-in-transition co-produced? This workshop engages these questions, proceeding from the premise that, generally speaking, studies of environment, science, technology, society (STS), and energy have overlooked studies of material cultures of practice and work. Over the last half-century, public policies have invested increasingly large resources into environmental mitigation and statistics suggest that many environmentally-sustainable green jobs are being stimulated in the process. Yet green work remains an ill-defined “contested discourse” (Teelucksingh 2019) as evidenced in the disparity between US and European data on this subject (Apostel and Barslund 2024). This controversy and the knowledge deficit it implies raises questions of the character and culture of environmental mitigation, including the technologies, infrastructures, and material practices/social relations informed by environmental policy and green industrialization, as well as what a socially and environmentally-just society would look like for the workers expected to build and maintain it.
Schedule:
10:00 Morning coffee
10:15 Welcome and introductions: Matthew N. Eisler (University of Strathclyde)
11:00 Keynote: University Professor Ferdinanda Ponci (E.ON Energy Research Center, RWTH Aachen University)
11:40 Q&A, discussion
12:00-1:30 Lunch
1:30 Mila Davids (Eindhoven University)
2:00 Q&A, discussion
2:20 Lisa Claussmann (Paris-PSL)
2:50 Q&A, discussion
3:10 Katie Kung (LMU Munich)
3:40 Q&A, discussion
4:00 Afternoon coffee
4:15 Rosalind Donald (American University)
4:45 Q&A, discussion
5:30-6:30 Wrap-up discussion, moderated by Hannah Star Rogers or Phillip H. Roth
7:00 Dinner (Restaurant Elisenbrunnen)

Please find more information and the abstracts in this document.
If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Reasoning in the Age of AI: Philosophical Perspectives
2025-12-16 09:30 - 17:00 | Stadtpalais, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Abstract:
This workshop explores the conceptual foundations of reasoning and asks whether artificial systems can genuinely be said to reason. It deals with how human thinking, which is shaped by beliefs, intentionality and experience, differs from the more formal, rule-based processes of AI. By discussing different perspectives from philosophy, cognitive science, and AI research, we aim to better understand whether artificial reasoning could ever be considered real reasoning, and what this might mean for our understanding.
Program:
09:30 Welcome (Gabriele Gramelsberger)
09:45 Markus Pantsar (RWTH Aachen): Towards an Epistemology of AI Reasoning
10:30 Jacqueline Bellon (University Tübingen): Reasoning by Accident and Intelligence beyond Belief: Is Statistical Reasoning Rational and are Humans?
11:15 Coffee Break
11:30 Jakob Ohlhorst (RWTH Aachen): Theory of Mind, (joint) Reasoning, and Large Language Models
12:15 Lunch
13:45 Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer (University Leipzig): Higher level Reason in Dialectical and Speculative Reflections. On the limited “Rationality” of Automatable Thinking
14:30 Stefania Centrone (Technical University Munich): Deductive Reasoning in Leibniz, Boole, and Beyond
15:15 Coffee Break
15:30 Daniel Wenz (RWTH Aachen): What is the Reason behind Artificial Reasoning?
16:15 Final Discussion
Please find the program and of the workshop in this document.
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Conference HaPoC 2025
2025-12-17 - 2025-12-19 | RWTH Aachen University – Super C, Templergraben 57, Aachen, 52062
The KHK c:o/re is proud to host the 8th edition of the international conference on History and Philosophy of Computing (HaPoC), taking place every two years under the auspices of the DHST/DLMPST Interdivisional Commission on History and Philosophy of Computing (www.hapoc.org).
Initiated in 2011, the conference has the aim of building an interdisciplinary community and environment to address the various facets of computing and computing technology, bringing together scholars from a broad range of disciplines to discuss the past and present cultures, practices and images of computing.
Find the program on our website.

Keynote Speakers:
Liesbeth De Mol, CNRS/Université de Lille, France
Robin K. Hill, University of Wyoming, US
Alexandre Hocquet, Université de Lorraine, France
Program Committee:
Arianna Borrelli, TU Berlin and RWTH Aachen, Germany
Jianqing Chen, Washington University at Saint Louis, US
Jack Copeland, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, NZ
Beatrice Fazi, University of Sussex, UK
Gabriele Gramelsberger, RWTH Aachen, Germany
Thomas Haigh, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, US
Andrei Korbut, CAIS Center for Advanced Internet Studies Bochum, Germany
Alfred Nordmann, TU Darmstadt, Germany
Mitsuhiro Okada, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan
Ben Peters, University of Tulsa, US
Mate Szabo, University of Southern California, US
Local Organising Committee at RWTH Aachen University:
Gabriele Gramelsberger (philosophy of science)
Stefan Böschen (sociology of science)
Dawid Kasprowicz (philosophy of science)
Phillip Roth (science and technology studies)
Saskia Nagel (ethics of science)
Torsten Voigt (science and technology studies)

A Portrait of the Scientist as a User - Alexandre Hocquet (Nancy)
2025-12-17 17:00 - 18:30 | RWTH Aachen University – Super C, Templergraben 57, Aachen, 52062
Abstract:
Why are computational chemists so peculiar? The history of their relationship with software brings an interesting case study to understand how software may shape scientific activity. We present four key moments in this history — from 1962 to 2024 — to illustrate how visions of openness and user agency have evolved. These include a software-sharing initiative, controversies over licensing and user management, and debates about the Alphafold AI tool.
The multifaceted category of ‘users’ is key to understand discourses about openness. We identify patterns of evolution in the relationship between software packages and the computational chemistry community. Throughout our narration, the notion of ‘users’ becomes more complex, in line with the commodification of programs into packages and the increasing complexity of the packages themselves.
Through the dyanmics of sharing, the legal consequences of software licenses, Non-Disclosure Agreements, and End-User License Agreements, we point out that the overall resulting pattern of evolution amounts to a kind of dispossession of scientists’ agency in their relationships with their tools. We propose to view the history of computational chemistry as the formation of a particular ‘repertoire’ where software is central and where the issue of the forms of collaboration and interaction among practitioners implies visions of openness of software development, circulation, maintenance and uses, all in friction.
This lecture is part of the 8th HaPoC Conference 2025 in Aachen.
If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

What Is a Computer Program? Or, How I Liberate(d) Myself as a Computer User - Liesbeth De Mol (Lille)
2025-12-18 09:30 - 10:30 | RWTH Aachen University – Super C, Templergraben 57, Aachen, 52062
Abstract:
The aim of this talk is to present the PROGRAMme project, a collective work amongst researchers from diverse disciplinary and ideological backgrounds who met for several years to work on the question “What is a computer program?”. In that project we develop a research programme which assumes it is possible /and/ necessary to work together across disciplinary and other boundaries to turn around a number of fundamental problems we are facing in connection to “programs”. In that regard, the project is ﬁrst of all a humanistic work: while programs have been interpreted before as an exempliﬁcation of cold, inhuman rationality, it is clear that more humanistic visions are possible. I present the project from a personal perspective and show how my version of PROGRAMme is deeply anchored in a more activist stance aimed at user liberations which, in my case, goes hand-in-hand with so-called academic nomadisms. I conclude with some concrete proposals for the future of the history and philosophy of computing.
This lecture is part of the 8th HaPoC Conference 2025 in Aachen.
If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Art Event: The Ambiguity of Sorting
2025-12-18 18:00 - 20:00 | RWTH Aachen University – Super C – Generali Saal 639, Templergraben 57, Aachen, 52062, Germany
The Ambiguity of Sorting
How do technologies of separation bring us together?
Digital systems are based on acts of transformation from continuity and unity into discreteness and separation. These acts of transformation have been popularized in the multiple ways in which humans engage with AI systems and other forms of digital technologies. Everything we do is transformed, one could say, automatically into data. It is transformed into discrete units that can be computed. Digital technologies have become more than tools for research; people produce knowledge with them, engage emotionally through and with these systems, generating new forms and spaces of intimacy. At the same time, these technologies carry a history of creating disconnections, failing to account for different ways of engaging with the world. They are the result of a certain imaginary of the human and intelligence, one that leaves aside many other existing ways to be in the world. What kind of communities are enabled by technologies? What kind of technologies are successful in bringing communities together? Can we imagine a history of technology that is based on plural ways of understanding intelligence and the human? How can we design technologies that bring people together? How can we imagine technologies that enable communities?
The Ambiguity of Sorting is a pop-up exhibition and a panel discussion that takes place during the 8th edition of the Conference of the Society for the History and Philosophy of Computing. The event brings together installation, performance, and conversations to discuss how the history of intelligent systems embodied ideas of intelligence, the human, and how we live together. With the panel, we invite to think of a different history of computing, one where those that were not thought to be fitting within their categories were creating their own technologies all along.
With contribution by: Sasha Bergstrom-Katz, Ren Loren Britton, and Verena Friedrich
Organization and moderation: Ana Maria Guzmán Olmos
Find out more about the artists and their artworks on this website.
Header photo: Sasha Bergstrom-Katz, On the Subject of Tests: Opening Boxes, 2022. Video.

Desk to Discourse: Development of the Philosophy of Computing from Wordstar and VisiCalc - Robin Hill (Laramie)
2025-12-19 09:30 - 10:30 | RWTH Aachen University – Super C, Templergraben 57, Aachen, 52062
Abstract:
While the American Philosophical Association’s Committee on Philosophy and Computers started its mission with community tech help and suggestions, the path proceeded through technique, practice, and application to philosophy. To explore interesting stages along the way, this talk identifies and follows features of office software through their effects and implications to emerging philosophical questions. Some are known, some are trivial, but we find questions of potential depth concerning the affordances and constraints of naming, values, separation, and structure, all appropriate for the philosophy of computing.
This lecture is part of the 8th HaPoC Conference 2025 in Aachen.
If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Reimagining Cities: Computational Thinking in the Post War Period - Nathalie Bredella (Hanover)
2026-01-07 17:00 - 18:30 | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
This event is part of our winter term 2025/26 Lecture Series Digital Complexity: Beyond Human Understanding.
If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Did the Computer Drive Science? Hardware Development and Digital Complexity in the 20th Century - Ulf Hashagen (Munich)
2026-01-21 17:00 - 18:30 | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Abstract:
The assumption that economic, technological and scientific development is driven by technological
determinism is widespread in politics, business, and society, as well as among scientists and
engineers. A notable example of this belief is the current notion that advances in scientific
knowledge are inextricably linked to the development of AI technology. Since the AI boom in the
2010s was based on the particular potential of graphics processing units (GPUs) for implementing
deep learning algorithms, the question arises as to what extent modern science in the 20th century
was already based on computers and driven by hardware innovations.
A historical review should enable a critical examination of this assumption from a broader historical
perspective. The lecture addresses the question of the extent to which the development of computer
hardware and scientific development have influenced each other since the invention of the computer
in the 1940s. Historical research has shown that the design and development of the first computers
was primarily driven by scientific problems in war research. From the mid-1950s onwards,
universities and non-university research institutions increasingly entered into “alliances with
industry” in the planning and production of new computers and eventually became customers of the
computer industry. How this bilateral producer-customer relationship and the trilateral relationship
between the computer industry, the state, and science have developed since the 1950s in terms of
research funding, the equipping of scientific institutions with computers, and their use by scientists
from various disciplines is a question that has received relatively little attention in historical research
to date.
These questions are discussed against the backdrop that, since the 1970s, the history of technology
has been committed to a model of contextualized historiography and has sought to prove in
numerous studies that the assumption that technology is an autonomous factor in the continuous
transformation of the human environment is a naïve idea.
This event is part of our winter term 2025/26 Lecture Series Digital Complexity: Beyond Human Understanding.
If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Digital Complexity in Historical Perspective: Lessons from the Study of Technological Transitions in Data Production and Visualization - Charlotte Bigg (Paris)
2026-02-11 17:00 - 18:30 | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany

Workshop: Digital Capitalism & Varieties of Science (Tokyo, Japan)
2026-03-12 10:00 - 17:00 | https://www.oeaw.ac.at/en/ita
In recent years, digital technologies have not only given rise to new sociocultural realities, thus reshaping economies, but have begun to profoundly alter the ways in which knowledge is produced, validated, and disseminated. Against this backdrop, this workshop explores the intersection of varieties of science and varieties of digital capitalism through a comparative and interdisciplinary lens. Starting from specific digital technologies – particularly the metaverse, extended reality, and human augmentation – we examine distinct institutional, cultural, and epistemic configurations.
Our focus lies especially on Japan, which has been characterized as a coordinated market economy alongside Germany. The workshop adopts an approach that investigates how science and capitalism co-evolve under conditions of digital transformation – understood here as a topic for critical inquiry (following Stolterman and Croon Fors 2004). Moving beyond modernization theory, we ask how digital tools and platforms take shape across a range of socio-political contexts, and how they in turn affect knowledge regimes and research practices.
By bringing together perspectives from STS, economics, and Japanese studies, along with insights from practice, the workshop seeks to open up a productive dialogue on how emerging technologies, digital capitalism, and scientific cultures co-constitute one another – across regions, disciplines, and epistemic traditions. We hold that the case of Japan, the first non-Western country to become an advanced economy and fertile spawning ground for technoscientific imaginations and attributions, offers particularly valuable insights into these processes.
Co-Organizers: Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research (RWTH Aachen), German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ) Tokyo
Convenors: Stefan Böschen, Harald Kümmerle, Nicole Müller
Location: German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ), Tokyo
The Sessions on Day One (“Digital Technology in Context”) will be livestreamed for a public online audience. Please register via: maxweberstiftung.zoom-x.de/webinar/register/WN_dKDVTS-VS5agd0_ea9wzaA.
You can find more information in the program and the speakers’ bios.
Please keep the time difference between Japan and Germany in mind!

Dis/Trusting Generative AI? Assessing Four Types of Deception Through Generative AI - Judith Simon (University of Hamburg)
2026-04-15 17:00 - 18:30 | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Abstract:
Generative AI has taken the world by storm, intensifying debates on the ethics of AI in general and notions of trustworthy Generative AI in particular. In my talk, I propose the notion of quadruple deception to capture a distinctive feature of Generative AI with significant epistemological, ethical and political implications: 1) deception regarding the ontological status of one’s interactional counterpart, 2) deception regarding the capacities of AI, 3) deception through content created with Generative AI as well as 4) deception resulting from function creep of Generative AI. Arguing that deception endangers trust and trustworthiness, I assess the epistemic, ethical and political implications of these four different types of deception for trust and trustworthiness. I will end with some conclusions on how to increase the trustworthiness of Generative AI to enable more justified trust in such technologies.
This event is part of our summer term 2026 Lecture Series Digital Complexity: Beyond Human Understanding.
If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

DFG-Workshop: Erkennen und Handeln zwischen Simulation und Realität
2026-04-16 - 2026-04-17 | Stadtpalais, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
The DFG workshop “Erkennen und Handeln zwischen Simulation und Realität” (Recognizing and Acting Between Simulation and Reality) will take place from April 16 to 17, 2026, in the c:o/re lecture hall. The event will be held in German. The full program can be found here.

Digital Complexity: De-Anthropological Trends in Computing, AI, and Robotics - Gabriele Gramelsberger (RWTH Aachen University)
2026-04-29 17:00 - 18:30 | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Abstract:
Current developments in the fields of simulation and artificial intelligence (AI) have shown that the complexity of digital tools has exceeded the level of human understanding. We can no longer comprehend, understand or explain the results that AI delivers. Even AI deceptions and hallucinations are now almost impossible to detect. This raises the question of the relationship between humans and their technology anew. Are technologies as instruments useful extensions of human capabilities, as it was understood in the classical philosophy of technology, or are we now extensions of our technologies? Will AI dominate and manipulate us in the near future?
This event is part of our summer term 2026 Lecture Series Digital Complexity: Beyond Human Understanding.
If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Hidden Futures: Prediction and Promise
2026-05-08 13:00 - 2026-05-09 20:00 | PACT Zollverein, Bullmannaue 20a, Essen, 45327, Germany
Our futures are made by technologies. How do data, algorithms, platforms, and code structure the future? What kinds of visions of the future are designed and foreseen by scientific practices and technological development? Who is included in such visions? How can we act in the midst of our technological present?
Together with PACT Zollverein, an international center for the performing arts working in the fields of dance, performance, theater, media, the KHK c:o/re organizes the event series “Hidden Futures”. The series brings together activists, researchers, and artists, opening new perspectives on the increasing complexity of digital life. Here, the future is not merely conceived as a distant vision, but also as a concrete reality embedded in the present – inscribed in data and platforms, in decision-making systems, in landscapes, infrastructures, in actions, and in social contexts.
The second edition, “Hidden Futures: Prediction and Promise”, explores how technological development creates future scenarios, shapes human and nonhuman life, and forms social and ecological contexts in the present. On May 8 and 9, 2026, we will engage in a series of conversations, walks, and tours to unpack how the future is being made and decided, with and by technologies.
On May 8, we are taking a bus tour into the Rhenish mining area: Where the massive pit of the Hambach surface mine still stands today, a new lakeland is set to emerge in the coming decades – one rich in ecological, economic, and tourist potential. In Elsdorf, Manheim, and Bürgewald, we meet people, including artist Silke Schatz and landscape and open space planner Daniela Karow-Kluge, who are planning, accompanying, or questioning this structural transformation.
On May 9, we will meet at PACT Zollverein in Essen, where artists and researchers will engage in a dialogue to explore different forms of knowledge and practices that go beyond the promises of technological developments. The future is conceived here as a present shaped by predictive systems that already organize and yield reality. With Choy Ka Fai, Ren Loren Britton, Nonhuman Nonsense, Nelly Y. Pinkrah, Yi Gu, Tomas Percival and many more.
Find further information and tickets on PACT’s website here.

Inferential Blueprints and Windows on Reality - Michela Massimi (University of Edinburgh); only online via Zoom!
2026-05-13 17:00 - 18:30 | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Only online via Zoom!
Abstract:
In this talk, I present a key aspect of my 2022 book Perspectival realism (OUP), namely the view of scientific models as inferential blueprints. Against a long-standing tradition that has focussed on the representational role of scientific models, I explain the rationale for regarding models as primarily inferential blueprints that allow different epistemic communities to exchange relevant and appropriate inferences on the relevant target system. I illustrate the view with both historical and contemporary examples of scientific modelling and I spell out the nature of the modal knowledge licensed by scientific models.
This event is part of our summer term 2026 Lecture Series Digital Complexity: Beyond Human Understanding.
If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Causation as Sign Action: Semiotic Empiricism and the Causal Complexity of Large Language Models - M. Beatrice Fazi (University of Sussex)
2026-06-03 17:00 - 18:30 | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Abstract:
Can large language models (LLMs) engage with causation, or are they confined to detecting correlations in data? This talk argues that addressing this question requires rethinking what causation itself is and how it becomes intelligible. Drawing on Charles Sanders Peirce’s triadic theory of signs, the talk develops the position that causation is semiotically constituted: causal relations become meaningful not through experiential grounding alone but through irreducibly triadic sign processes involving signs, objects, and interpretants. Albert Michotte’s “launching effect” experiment provides a key departure point, demonstrating that causal perception is already semiotic rather than a matter of direct apprehension or Humean inference. This reframing challenges Judea Pearl’s influential “ladder of causation”—which positions LLMs as processors of correlations incapable of causal reasoning—while also taking seriously Pearl’s own acknowledgment that causal information is embedded in the training texts on which these models operate. The talk proposes “semiotic empiricism” as a framework in which experience is structured by meaning-making rather than preceding it, and examines its consequences for understanding how LLMs might participate in causal reasoning as semiotic machines, thus moving the debate beyond both dismissive critique and anthropomorphic overclaiming.
This event is part of our summer term 2026 Lecture Series Digital Complexity: Beyond Human Understanding.
If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Canceled: Cybernetics and Critique: A Theory of Digital Governmentality - Anna-Verena Nosthoff (Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg)
2026-06-17 17:00 - 18:30 | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
‼️ Unfortunately, this lecture by Anna-Verena Nosthoff has to be canceled.
We hope to see you on July 1 for Yi Gu’s lecture on “The Stack of Territory: Digital Complexity and the Making of Geospatial Infrastructures in China.”
Abstract:

Elon Musk describes X as a “cybernetic superintelligence,” Mark Zuckerberg views companies as “learning organisms,” and the inventor of Google Glass says, “Cybernetics is everywhere, like air.” These statements are not coincidental. Anyone who seeks to understand the digital transformation must look at its cybernetic origins. In her lecture, Anna-Verena Nosthoff offers insights into her recent book, “Cybernetics and Critique: A Theory of Digital Government” (Suhrkamp Verlag), and illustrates its fundamental theses with the current authoritarian shift in Silicon Valley. Indeed, contemporary techno-fascism, as promoted by figures like Musk, can be understood particularly well from the perspective of cybernetic constructs. This brings into focus not only transhumanist cyborg fantasies and solutionist, post-ideological concepts of technology, but also binary and affect-centered concepts of the public sphere and technocratic, information-centered understandings of the state. These topoi find totalitarian parallels in the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” in Musk’s decidedly right-wing management of his platform “X,” and also in the current AGI hype. Against this backdrop, contemporary “Muskism” (Lepore) proves to be a simultaneously disruptive and incremental form of digital governance: it is primarily recognizable as cybernetic authoritarianism.

This event is part of our summer term 2026 Lecture Series Digital Complexity: Beyond Human Understanding.
If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Seam Work and Digital Complexity in China’s Real-Scene 3D - Yi Gu (University of Toronto)
2026-07-01 17:00 - 18:30 | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Abstract:

The Real-Scene 3D China initiative, launched in 2019, set out to turn photorealistic three-dimensional spatial data into what state documents call an “important new infrastructure” and a “unified spatial positioning framework and analytical basis” for Digital China. While LiDAR and satellite imagery also enter the workflow, the privileged technique of Real-Scene 3D China is oblique photogrammetry: multiple aerial cameras capture ground objects from vertical and slanted angles, and software reconstructs these images as a textured 3D mesh. Unlike studies that examine photogrammetry primarily through heritage preservation, film and gaming industries, or computer-vision approaches to automated reconstruction, this talk asks what happens when photographic realism becomes cartographic and administrative infrastructure.
I propose “seam work” to describe the operations through which Chinese software systems address the fractures generated by photogrammetric meshes: holes, texture smearing, geometric distortions, coordinate mismatches, and the absence of object-based segmentation and semantic enrichment. DP-Modeler repairs and supplements faulty photogrammetric surfaces. SuperMap overlays vector units to perform single-object extraction, turning continuous meshes into selectable and queryable entities. Mirauge3D and related tools further suggest how imperfect data, lower-cost production, and bureaucratic campaigns helped Real-Scene 3D reach industrial scale. Drawing on media archaeology, history of technology, and visual culture studies, I examine these domestic software systems not merely as expressions of China’s ambition for indigenous innovation, but as epistemic techniques for making defective and heterogeneous spatial data usable at scale.
While attentive to China’s historical and political specificities, I approach the booming Chinese geospatial information industry not as a technological exception but as a diagnostic site. The closest comparison may be the U.S. military’s One World Terrain, yet Real-Scene 3D China moves one step further in coupling simulation-like realism with cartographic and administrative objectification. Through bureaucratic campaigns, photorealistic 3D modeling has been extended not only to urban centers but also to the countryside. The case therefore makes visible a political condition of digital complexity: power operates through the management of seams that turn uneven territorial data into administratively legible, scalable, and governable spatial order.
This event is part of our summer term 2026 Lecture Series Digital Complexity: Beyond Human Understanding.
If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Summer School: The impacts of digitalization on science and society in the quest for more sustainable futures
2026-07-06 - 2026-07-10 | https://www.oeaw.ac.at/en/ita
The PRAXIS research group at the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS, KIT Karlsruhe) and the KHK c:o/re at RWTH Aachen University will host an International Summer School for PhD students, titled “The impacts of digitalization on science and society in the quest for more sustainable futures”, from July 6-10, 2026, in Donostia-San Sebastián.
The transformative effects of the digitalization of science are evident at various levels, but its interactions with, and future impacts on, the broader socio-cultural transformations of science and society remain largely unknown and call for further research. Accordingly, the Summer School will focus on the following key topics:

Transformations in scientific knowledge production through digitalization
Transformations of scientific cultures in everyday practices
Transformations of science–society interactions in transdisciplinary and transformative research through real-world experiments using digital twins
Concepts and methodologies for the assessment and governance of digital transformation activities
Varieties of knowledge production and their transformation through digitalization worldwide

Keynote lecturers of the Summer School will be Prof. Dr. Gabriele Gramelsberger, KHK c:o/re, c:o/re Fellow Prof. Dr. Harro van Lente, full professor of Science and Technology Studies at the Faculty of Arts and Social Science, Maastricht University, and Prof. Dr. Stefano Balbi, Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) and IKERBASQUE – Basque Foundation for Science, Basque Country.
The Summer School invites PhD-researchers worldwide from a broad range of Humanities, Social Studies and Cultural Studies, Science & Technology Studies (STS) and Technology Assessment (TA) and other inter- and transdisciplinary approaches such as policy-, sustainability-, and transformative-research, which address the interrelations of digitalization of science and socio-cultural transformations.

Artificial Intelligence as Cultural Technique: Do Chatbots Understand What They Communicate — Almost Perfectly? - Sybille Krämer (Leuphana University of Lüneburg)
2026-07-22 17:00 - 18:30 | Stadtpalais/Online, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
Abstract:

Generative digital media—particularly those that produce text—create the impression of a dialogue between humans and machines. The more perfect the communicative interaction—which is often epistemically useful—becomes, the more it triggers anthropomorphic notions. This lecture develops a non-anthropomorphic interpretation of artificial intelligence by conceptualizing it as a cultural technique. A cultural technique, however, that not only changes the foundations of work and communication but also transforms basic scientific practices (“scholarly primitives”), comparable to the upheavals associated with the invention of the printing press.
The methodological starting point is the premise of a genuine technical nature of human being as practice. The central argument of analyzing the transition from alphanumeric to digital literacy is the “written” character of token-statistical operations in the context of the use of large language models. This “written” nature determines, on the one hand, the continuity of the digital—which must be understood independently of the computer—and, on the other hand, the radical, disruptive novelty associated with the normalization of artificial intelligence use.
This event is part of our summer term 2026 Lecture Series Digital Complexity: Beyond Human Understanding.
If you would like to attend, please register with events@khk.rwth-aachen.de.

Imaginationskraft, Literalität und das fragende Humanum im KI-Zeitalter: Empirische Befunde und bildungsphilosophische Resilienzstrategien am Fallbeispiel Südkorea - Chun-Shik Kim
2026-07-23 14:30 - 16:00 | Stadtpalais, Theaterstraße 75, Aachen, 52062, Germany
The talk will be held by Chun-Shik Kim, former RWTH Kármán-Fellow at c:o/re, in German.
Abstract:

Einleitung und problemgeschichtlicher Kontext

Die zeitgenössische Transformation der globalen Wissensgesellschaft durch die rasante Durchdringung mit generativer Künstlicher Intelligenz (KI) stellt keine bloße technologische Evolution dar, sondern eine fundamentale anthropologische Zäsur. In einer Epoche, in der algorithmische Systeme zunehmend kognitive, kreative und diskursive Vorrechte des Menschen präemptieren – vom autonomen Verfassen akademischer Texte bis hin zur automatisierten Synthese ästhetischer Artefakte –, gerät das traditionelle Selbstverständnis des Homo sapiens als singuläres denkendes Subjekt in eine existenzielle Krise. Vor diesem Hintergrund fungiert Südkorea, als eine der am stärksten digitalisierten und technologisch am weitesten fortgeschrittenen Gesellschaften der Gegenwart, als ein globales, empirisch hochgradig relevantes „Frühwarnsystem“. Die dort sichtbaren Entwicklungen erlauben es, die tiefgreifenden Konsequenzen der KI-Revolution und des ubiquitären Konsums algorithmisch optimierter Kurzinhalte auf die menschliche Kognition, die psychische Vulnerabilität und die Mechanismen der sozialen Kohäsion ex ante zu analysieren.

Die Krise der Literalität und der kognitive Verfall im Spiegel digitaler Monokulturen

Ein zentraler Fokus des Vortrags liegt auf der kritischen Dekonstruktion der aktuellen Krise der menschlichen Lesekompetenz (Literalität). Empirische Befunde aus der südkoreanischen Bildungslandschaft der letzten Jahre zeichnen ein alarmierendes Bild: Über alle Altersgruppen hinweg ist ein signifikanter Rückgang der Fähigkeit zum tiefen, linearen und hermeneutischen Lesen zu verzeichnen. Diese Entwicklung korreliert kausal mit der Etablierung einer digitalen Aufmerksamkeitsökonomie, die primär auf die Rezeption algorithmisch gesteuerter Kurzvideoformate (sog. „Shorts“, „Reels“ oder „TikTok-Feeds“) ausgerichtet ist. Kognitionswissenschaftlich und neurobiologisch lässt sich zeigen, dass dieser permanente, fragmentierte Reizstrom das menschliche Gehirn auf ein rein diskontinuierliches, reaktives Rezipieren konditioniert. Die synaptische Fähigkeit, komplexe, textbasierte Argumentationsketten gedanklich zu durchdringen, logische Inkonsistenzen zu identifizieren und eigenständige Abstraktionsleistungen zu erbringen, wird dadurch systematisch atrophiert. Im interkulturellen Vergleich mit europäischen, insbesondere deutschen Bildungs- und PISA-Daten wird deutlich, dass es sich hierbei nicht um ein isoliertes ostasiatisches Phänomen handelt, sondern um eine universelle Pathologie der digitalen Moderne.

Psychopathologische Implikationen und die Krise der psychischen Vulnerabilität

Parallel zum kognitiven Abbau manifestiert sich in Südkorea eine soziopsychiatrische Krise von beispiellosem Ausmaß. Seit dem Jahr 2020 ist eine dramatische Zunahme psychischer Erkrankungen, insbesondere unter Jugendlichen und jungen Erwachsenen, zu beobachten. Die Fallzahlen und Beratungsanfragen an schulischen und akademischen psychologischen Diensten verzeichnen innerhalb eines Fünfjahreszeitraums einen Anstieg von über 40 Prozent. Phänomene wie extreme soziale Isolation, pathologische Angststörungen und chronisch-depressive Episoden weisen eine statistisch signifikante Korrelation mit exzessivem, dysfunktionalem Smartphone- und KI-Konsum auf. Der Vortrag bettet diese Befunde in einen sozialpsychiatrischen Kontext ein und argumentiert, dass die Entfremdung von der physischen Realität und die Substitution genuiner interpersoneller Interaktionen durch algorithmische Feedbackschleifen die psychische Resilienz des modernen Subjekts systematisch untergraben. Diese epidemiologische Entwicklung liefert drängende Impulse für eine transnationale präventive Bildungs- und Gesundheitspolitik.

Synästhetische Atrophie und das Paradoxon der „freiwilligen Domestizierung“

Auf einer tieferen philosophischen und anthropologischen Ebene führt die permanente digitale Reizüberflutung zu dem, was als synästhetischer Verfall bezeichnet werden muss – dem Verlust der Fähigkeit, diverse Sinnesmodalitäten kreativ, emotional und hermeneutisch miteinander zu verknüpfen. In theoretischer Anlehnung an Peter Sloterdijks Konzepte der anthropotechnischen Selbstformung sowie an das evolutionär-soziologische Theorem der „domestication by choice“ (der freiwilligen Verhaltensvereinfachung und kognitiven Selbstunterwerfung unter technologische Entlastungsarchive) analysiert der Vortrag die Dialektik der digitalen Befreiung. Indem der Mensch fundamentale kognitive Prozesse an KI-Systeme delegiert, entzieht er seinen eigenen geistigen Vermögen den notwendigen Widerstand. Die Folge ist eine paradoxe Verengung des sensorischen, imaginativen und kognitiven Repertoires. Das Staunen, das spekulatieve Erfinden und das genuine Fragen – als Kernmerkmale des Humanum – drohen in einer technologisch kuratierten Passivität zu erlöschen.

Bildungsphilosophische Gegenstrategien: Die Stärkung des „Gedankenmuskels“

Gegen diese dystopischen Tendenzen artikuliert der Vortrag eine dezidiert konstruktive, bildungsphilosophische Gegenposition. Im Zentrum steht hierbei die theoretische Fundierung des in der koreanischen Reformdiskussion geprägten Begriffs des „Gedankenmuskels“ (Mind Muscle). Dieses Konzept zielt auf die systematische, curative Rekultivierung der kognitiven Resilienz, der imaginativen Kapazität und der sprachlichen Souveränität des Subjekts. Historisch-philosophisch inspiriert wird dieser Ansatz durch das Vermächtnis des späteren südkoreanischen Präsidenten und Friedensnobelpreisträgers Kim Dae-jung (1925–2009). Dieser hatte während seiner politischen Hafthaft unter akuter Todesgefahr in seinen berühmten Gefängnisbriefen ein humanistisches Bildungsmanifest formuliert, das die „geistige Erhebung des Menschen“ und die unbedingte Bewahrung der inneren Freiheit als ultimatives Ziel jeglicher Pädagogik proklamierte.
Der Vortrag plädiert abschließend für eine transnationale Renaissance des fragenden, selbstdenkenden Subjekts. Nur durch eine bildungspolitische und philosophische Neuausrichtung, welche die Ausbildung tiefer Literalität und die Stärkung des kognitiven Widerstandes gegen die algorithmische Sedierung priorisiert, kann die internationale Wissenschaftsgemeinschaft der Gefahr einer technologisch induzierten Selbstdomestizierung des Menschen wirksam begegnen.

Freedom of Research: A European Summit
2026-11-04 08:00 - 2026-11-05 17:00 | https://www.oeaw.ac.at/en/ita
For more information about the program, check out the event website.
The Summit is organized by the Charlemagne Prize Foundation and RWTH Aachen University’s Knowledge Hub and Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research (c:o/re).

Conference: Varieties of Science and Technology in Europe: Shifting Fortunes of STS in Turbulent Times
2026-11-12 - 2026-11-13 | Forum M, Mayersche, Buchkremerstraße 1-7, Aachen, 52062, Germany
This year’s Gesellschaft für Wissenschafts- und Technikforschung e.V. (GWTF) conference is organized in cooperation with RWTH Aachen University’s Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research (c:o/re) and its current thematic focus on “Globality and Varieties of Science.” We therefore expressly invite members of national STS associations in Europe to discuss this topic with us.
Science and Technology Studies (STS) currently find themselves in a precarious position: Epistemologically, they are caught between multiple disciplines precisely because they have become highly specialized. Institutionally, as a relatively small field, this position is often weak. At the same time, STS are increasingly called upon to contribute to innovation and transformation processes originating in other disciplines, such as biosciences or engineering. This is less surprising than it appears at first glance, for science and technology themselves confront a range of tensions. On the one hand, STS are mobilized to address societal problems and increasingly help to play a prominent role in processes of collective problem-solving. Key terms here include transdisciplinary research, mission-oriented research, co-creation, and responsible research and innovation. On the other hand, science and technology face increasing attacks and challenges. Growing restrictions of academic freedom in many countries are evident in the Academic Freedom Index. In addition, universities have become battlegrounds for right-wing culture wars, in which slogans like “cancel culture” are used to stir up sentiment against those deemed undesirable. In this situation, research into the social and cultural dimensions of science and technology is growing in significance. Under these conditions, and in playing an integrated role for science and technology, STS must navigate more actively the tension between engagement and distancing.
In this context, we want to take a closer look at the question of the positioning of Science and Technology Studies against the backdrop of different circumstances in European countries. We want to learn about specific cultural and institutional embeddings of STS and also focus on developments where these embeddings are particularly salient. We suggest the following two thematic strands as exemplary cases:

Forms of hybrid knowledge production and technology development in different European countries. It is truly astonishing how diverse the variants of transdisciplinary research have become under various labels (be it transdisciplinary research, citizen science, real-world laboratories, etc.). Modes of funding and innovation policy have provided stimulating impe-tuses for how specific academic systems and forms of civil society organization interact. How have these forms of transdisciplinary research developed and which variations can be ob-served? And what is the relationship between such variations and their respective cultural-institutional contexts? What self-conceptions of researchers have developed? What does the balance between engagement and distancing look like, how did it develop, and how is it per-formed? For example, the conditions and limitations of academic freedom differ from country to country. Europe, too, is not free from authoritarian developments, which assigns science and technology research a significant yet precarious sociopolitical role in preserving academic freedom through its continued advancement.
Academic careers (in STS) in different countries. Academic systems can be understood in terms of their form and orientation particularly through the academic careers that emerge within them—or fail to emerge. The conditions of socialization of aspiring researchers reflect the particular cultural and institutional characteristics of a scientific system. What career paths are typically institutionally predefined? What meritocratic signals must scientists in their early career paths demonstrate to accumulate the symbolic capital that is so crucial? Even if the prevailing impression is that these are measured by the respective disciplines using purely objective criteria (such as, publication and external funding success), a closer look is warranted here. What experiences and career paths exist in the various European countries? What key factors influence the similarity or dissimilarity of such career paths? And what is the situation in particularly specialized fields such as STS, where it can be assumed that career trajectories within the academic system—which are already highly complex—develop in even more intricate ways? In addition to disciplinary quality indicators, researchers often face other requirements that they must fulfill, which presents a significant problem in the academic careers of researchers in STS, as academic careers have traditionally been determined by discipline—that is, by a qualification in a specific academic field. Cross-disciplinary perspectives are often critical in this regard. However: how does this relate to the different fields of application and the disciplines involved? What differences emerge depending on funding formats?
