Since its launch, the RHET AI cen­ter has invest­ig­ated how Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence is per­ceived by soci­ety, what nar­rat­ives and images impact pub­lic dis­course, and how sci­ence com­mu­nic­a­tion can con­trib­ute to foster ori­ent­a­tion, dia­logue, and trust in sci­ence. Togeth­er with part­ners from research and prac­tice we exper­i­mented with new formats, brought dif­fer­ent audi­ences in the exchange about AI and sup­por­ted sci­ent­ists to bet­ter com­mu­nic­ate their work.

The second fund­ing phase will build on these exper­i­ences and find­ings. Unter the leit­mot­if „New Inter­ac­tions with AI“ we want to look at the pro­found changes that arise from gen­er­at­ive and mul­timod­al AI systems.

Cent­ral to this work will be ques­tions such as:

• How do mul­timod­al AI applic­a­tions change the com­mu­nic­a­tion of knowledge?
• Which new forms of inter­ac­tions between human and AI will develop?
• What kind of impact will these devel­op­ments have on trust, ori­ent­a­tion and soci­et­al participation?
• What kind of com­pet­en­cies will be neces­sary to use AI sys­tems in a crit­ic­al, care­ful, and respons­ible way?

A spe­cif­ic focus will be on the top­ics of mul­timod­al­ity of AI and crit­ic­al AI literacy.

We want to thank the Volk­swa­gen found­a­tion for the con­tin­ued trust, as well as thank all part­ners, sup­port­ers, and par­ti­cipants that have shaped the first fund­ing phase togeth­er with us. We look for­ward to the next years and to devel­op new per­spect­ives on the com­mu­nic­a­tion on and with AI.