TUM convenes advisory board of the Institute for Ethics in AI

6/3/2019
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Prof. Wolfgang A. Herrmann, President of the Technical University of Munich (TUM), has convened the advisory board for the Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence (IEAI). The Board, made up of six independent and renowned experts from the engineering and social sciences, will among other things be centrally involved in the selection of the institute’s research projects.

Decisions Artificial Intelligence has to make in Autonomous Driving are one example of research questions in the field of Ethics in AI.

With the convocation of the advisory board, the new TUM institute is now ready to launch its activities. It calls on scientists to submit their multidisciplinary research projects for consideration. All projects are to be structured as tandem ventures incorporating both engineering and social sciences. "At TUM we have the perfect prerequisites, with cutting-edge research not only in the field Artificial Intelligence, but also in the social sciences. Our Institute is one of the places where this extremely valuable combination can be appropriately leveraged," says Institute head Prof. Christoph Lütge. At least one of the two candidates applying has to be a TUM scientist. The new advisory board will apply strict rules in assessing and prioritizing all requests. The first research projects will be presented to the public at a symposium on October 7 of this year.

IEAI advisory board members

Prof. Dr. Petra Ahrweiler; Chair for Technology and Innovation Sociology, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
Auxiliary Bishop Anton Losinger; Episcopal Vicar ("Bischofsvikar") for Bioethics and Social Policy, Augsburg
Prof. Dr. Christoph Meinel; Director and CEO of the Hasso-Plattner-Institute for Digital Engineering at the University of Potsdam
Hannes Schwaderer; President of Initiative D21 e. V. and CEO of Intel Germany
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr.-Ing. E.h. Dr. h.c. Dieter Spath; President of acatech and Director of Fraunhofer IAO and IAT, University of Stuttgart
Zuzanna Warso; Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, Warsaw

Human-Centered Engineering

Defining ethical guidelines covering the development and implementation of AI is one of the central topics relating to the social relevance of technical innovations. For years TUM has been a driving force in researching the mutual interactions of science, technology and society and has anchored "Human-Centered Engineering" as a central point in its new strategic guidelines. The new Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence is integrated in the Munich Center for Technology in Society, which TUM founded in 2012 and which has today become one of Germany's leading centers for scientific and technical research.

Technical University of Munich

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