The Tübin­gen Cen­ter for Rhet­or­ic­al Sci­ence Com­mu­nic­a­tion Research on Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (RHET AI) was one of four cen­ters fun­ded by the Volk­swa­gen­Stif­tung in 2021 as part of the Sci­ence Com­mu­nic­a­tion Cubed pro­gram (Wis­senschaft­skom­munika­tion hoch drei). The team of the RHET AI Cen­ter has set itself the task of research­ing and improv­ing com­mu­nic­a­tion about arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence in sci­ence and soci­ety. To this end, among oth­er things, work­shop pro­grams have been developed that are spe­cific­ally aimed at research­ers in the field of AI. Fur­ther­more, pro­jects on sci­ence com­mu­nic­a­tion were launched, such as the Arti­fi­cial Fri­day and the format I'm a Sci­ent­ist. Anoth­er focus of the RHET AI Centre is pub­lic engage­ment, which is imple­men­ted through pub­lic events such as the read­ing series A Dif­fer­ent Look at AI, lec­tures, con­fer­ences and exhibitions.

On April 28, 2023, the RHET AI Day took place, focus­ing on two key ques­tions: Where do we cur­rently stand as RHET AI Cen­ter and how should we con­tin­ue to shape the future? This joint day enabled the mem­bers at the three loc­a­tions in Tübin­gen, Karls­ruhe and Ber­lin to intensi­fy their close exchange even further.

The team of the cen­ter came togeth­er in Tübin­gen for an open exchange of ideas. In the first half of the day, in addi­tion to reports on the gen­er­al status of the Cen­ter, the focus was primar­ily on the research per­spect­ives of the indi­vidu­al units. Monika Hanaus­ka and Anna Maria Köhler from Unit 1: Dis­course & Nar­rat­ives gave insights into their respect­ive research on cor­pus lin­guist­ic ana­lys­is of the concept of the "black box" in rela­tion to AI and on forms of protest in AI dis­course. From Unit 2: Visu­al Com­mu­nic­a­tion, Lukas Kohmann, Anne Burkhardt, and Michael Pelzer presen­ted their pro­jects on AI in film, AI and the (glob­al) South(s), and Know­ledge Design. Patrick Klü­gel and Kim Luth­er from Unit 4: Events con­cluded with an insight into the ini­tial res­ults of their sur­veys, which are always con­duc­ted in con­junc­tion with RHET AI Cen­ter events. The indi­vidu­al present­a­tions were intens­ively dis­cussed and new impulses for fur­ther work were set.

Michael Pelzer on Know­ledge Design at the RHET AI Day 2023 

Exchange of ideas was the key focus of the day 

Lukas Kohmann present­ing his work on AI in film 

Markus Gott­schling and Anika Kais­er in discussion 

The exchange of ideas was also the focus of the second half of the day. After lunch, the next mile­stones and future pro­jects were dis­cussed in an open for­um. The over­arch­ing goal was the ques­tion of how the RHET AI Cen­ter can con­tin­ue to devel­op as a cen­ter of excel­lence for rhet­or­ic­al sci­ence com­mu­nic­a­tion on arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence in the future.

In small groups, con­crete action steps were designed and chal­lenges iden­ti­fied at an early stage. These were then dis­cussed together.

In sum­mary, we can reflect on a motiv­at­ing and insight­ful RHET AI Day 2023. We are now look­ing for­ward to imple­ment­ing the ideas from the day. You can sign up here for our news­let­ter with all the notices of upcom­ing RHET AI Cen­ter events.