The Dead­line for con­fer­ence regis­tra­tion is Tues­day, Novem­ber 5th!

In cooper­a­tion with the Max-Planck-Insti­tute, the RHET AI Cen­ter is organ­ising an inter­dis­cip­lin­ary sym­posi­um focused on the found­a­tions, func­tions, and com­mu­nic­at­ive implic­a­tions of gen­er­at­ive AI. The aca­dem­ic dis­cus­sion will be accom­pan­ied by a pub­lic Sci­ence Notes event, which is part of the Uni­ver­sity of Tübingen's Sci­ence and Innov­a­tion Days, as well as by the university's Cog­nit­ive Sci­ence Cen­ter.

At the inter­na­tion­al con­fer­ence Per­suas­ive Algorithms, we will bring togeth­er research­ers from vari­ous dis­cip­lines includ­ing machine learn­ing, cog­nit­ive sci­ence, philo­sophy of lan­guage, rhet­or­ic, lin­guist­ics, and media stud­ies, along­side experts in journ­al­ism, cul­ture, and sci­ence com­mu­nic­a­tion for a series of excit­ing lec­tures from across these fields. With AI con­stantly evolving, we aim to spark dia­logue around AI and its effects through an exper­i­ment­al format called "Prob­lem Pitches", designed to reveal fresh per­spect­ives, view­points, and pos­i­tions. We will dis­cuss wheth­er and how com­mu­nic­a­tion is being trans­formed by gen­er­at­ive AI. 

The con­fer­ence will open with a key­note by Casey Mock from the Cen­ter for Humane Tech­no­logy. He explores the ques­tion what hap­pens if we replace forms and cen­tur­ies-old cor­por­ate and gov­ern­ment bur­eau­cra­cies with black-box machines that may not be per­suad­able or allow appeals to a high­er authority.

The pan­el "Is AI Inev­it­able?" will con­clude the first day of the con­fer­ence. Eva Wolfan­gel will explore the pro­found impact of AI on soci­ety, from edu­ca­tion and fair­ness to pub­lic per­cep­tion and algorithmic bias and dis­cuss with Annette Leßmöll­mann, Esth­er Greuss­ing and Mor­itz Hardt if and how AI's path can be shaped or reversed.

Bernhard Schölkopf rounds out the second day of the con­fer­ence with a key­note on Borges and AI. In his key­note, he brings in a new per­spect­ive on gen­er­at­ive AI by advoc­at­ing under­stand­ing LLMs and their con­nec­tion to AI through the imagery of Jorge Luis Borges, a mas­ter of 20th cen­tury lit­er­at­ure, fore­run­ner of magic­al real­ism, and pre­curs­or to post­mod­ern literature.

Mike Schäfer from the Uni­ver­sity of Zurich will start us on the last day of the con­fer­ence with a key­note on the top­ic of Sci­ence Com­mu­nic­a­tion in the Age of AI, in which he explores both the prac­tice and research of sci­ence com­mu­nic­a­tion in the age of AI, out­lining oppor­tun­it­ies and chal­lenges, emer­ging find­ings, and key research dir­ec­tions for the future.

Find out more about the upcom­ing top­ics, the symposium's goals, and the core themes here. You can also register for par­ti­cip­a­tion via the link. The con­fer­ence lan­guage is English.