The new year is just around the corner. 2024 marks the end of another eventful year at RHET AI. We want to take this opportunity to look back at everything that took place at RHET AI in these past 12 months.
Don't worry, this won't be a mere reproduction of our news archive. Instead, we've decided to let our team have their say this year. After all, without all the wonderful, dedicated people at RHET AI, we wouldn't have anything to report on anyway. That's why we asked our team what their personal RHET AI highlight of the year was.
The answers once again showed how diverse our 2024 was! What does that mean in concrete terms? Stay tuned and read for yourself.
Let's stay with our team, because there were a few changes in 2024. It was with a heavy heart that Lukas Kohmann, Kim Luther and Nina Kalwa said goodbye to RHET AI and hello to new tasks. We miss the three of them very much and wish them all the best. On the other hand, we were delighted to welcome Rafaela Pfeil and Fabian Erhardt to the team in October. From July to September, Dra María del Mar Garcia Jiménez from the Facultad de Bellas Artes at the Universidad de Sevilla in Spain joined us in Tübingen. María del Mar is researching the implications of AI in the visual arts and was a guest at the RHET AI for a research stay.
However, in addition to changes, there were also some things that remained constant this year. For example, our good partnership with our colleagues at Wissenschaft im Dialog. Together, we also carried out Scicomm projects for students in 2024, such as the tried-and-tested I'm a Scientist format. In five themed rounds, around 1,500 pupils were able to put their questions about artificial intelligence and related topics (AI-creative, democracy and AI, AI and medicine) to around 90 volunteer scientists. With the Junior Science Café KI, another project successfully continued nationwide in 2024. At nine schools, pupils from year 8 onwards independently organized cafés with experts on questions such as: “AI — utopia or dystopia?”, “AI in education” and “Which images can I still trust? — AI and digital image generation”.
The journalist-in-residence programme, which we organize in cooperation with Cyber Valley, also continued successfully in 2024. In January, Elena Riedlinger and Tobias Asmuth presented their findings at the end of their research stay. “Hype or hope? How should journalists report on the use of artificial intelligence in the fight against climate change?” was Tobias Asmuth's research question. Elena Riedlinger, on the other hand, worked on the topic: “AI and journalistic factchecking. New challenges, new opportunities?” In October, we welcomed Willem de Haan and Anna Henschel as new JIRs at RHET AI.
Let's stick with the tried and tested for a moment: as the student editorial team, we continued our tool test series “Deus ex machina” and our mini-series “AI in museums” in 2024. We also launched a new video series, “A look inside”, in which we provide insights into our work at RHET AI. In addition, further series are already being planned for 2025, so you can look forward to them.
“In addition to the Artificial Fridays, the general exchange and the progress of my dissertation, I would see my participation in the new video series “A look inside”, in which I was able to give a brief insight into my work, as a personal highlight. The preparation and support went really well, I gave an interview about my project for the first time and was able to gain new experiences in front of the camera. I'm already looking forward to the end result!”
Franziska Buresch (Unit 1)
“My personal RHET AI Highlight 2024 was to see how AI researchers, design students and interested members of the public exchanged ideas during the creative hackathon ́'Rethinking AI' and worked together intensively for a day to design new visualizations for AI. It was a lively dialog between science and society that enriched everyone involved. Such experiences motivate us to offer new formats in this direction and to further promote the exchange on artificial intelligence.”
Michael Pelzer (Unit 2)
Public engagement was also an integral part of our work at RHET AI in 2024. We approached citizens in a wide variety of projects and engaged in discussions with them about AI. For example, we continued our interactive reading series “A different view of AI” with a reading in Karlsruhe, were a guest at the Science Notes in Heidelberg and at the dai in Tübingen. At the Science & Innovation Days in November, we launched another public engagement project together with the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart with the creative hackathon “Seeing AI anew”. The aim of the multi-part collaboration is to bring together different disciplines, skills and perspectives in order to jointly create new imagery and visual metaphors around the topic of artificial intelligence.
The Citizens' Assembly “Artificial Intelligence and Freedom”, whose four meetings took place from September to November, had a particular impact on our 2024. Around 40 randomly selected citizens from Baden-Württemberg took part in the Citizens' Assembly and discussed their perspectives on publicly funded AI research, its framework conditions and participation options. The guiding question was: “How can science and society work together to shape the future of artificial intelligence research?”
“One of my highlights was the fourth meeting of the Citizens' Assembly “AI and Freedom”, in which 30 citizens engaged in a committed, focused and quite controversial discussion about the priorities they would like to set in their recommendations for supporting AI research. There was some wrangling over individual formulations. At the end, one of the citizens said that for him, the discussions on the complicated topics in the Council were grassroots democracy in action, which gave him hope for the future. I thought that was a strong statement and a nice reward for all the work we've done on the council project this year.”
Patrick Klügel (Unit 4)
With an AI slam in Tübingen, an AI pub quiz in Donaueschingen and a coffee house debate in Stuttgart, three events were also held to accompany the Citizens' Assembly, inviting people to reflect on individual Citizens' Assembly topics in other public spaces. The Unit 4 team had been working on planning the Citizens' Assembly for more than a year and can take a pat on the back for its successful implementation. Work is currently in full swing on processing the results, which are to be presented to the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts at the beginning of 2025. The “Machine Learning” Cluster of Excellence at the University of Tübingen will also receive the recommendations. We are already very excited to see how the arguments and recommendations of the Citizens' Assembly will be further negotiated by AI research, politics and in public discourse in the new year.
“This year, after a long planning phase, my event team and I finally organized the Citizens' Assembly 'AI and Freedom'. It was really something special when the meeting days finally outgrew their conjunctives. But what I found even better was driving home after the meetings, with red cheeks from the day's enthusiasm, the team crammed into this sardine tin like car of Patrick (once we additionally had to bring in a lot of firewood), that was being allowed to be tired, that was being together, that was room for emptying chatter.”
Anika Kaiser (Unit 4)
The successful implementation of the project was also underlined by Baden-Württemberg's Minister of Science, Research and the Arts, Dr. Petra Olschowski, who accompanied the Citizens' Council with interest and took part in the fourth session herself. The Minister visited the RHET AI back in September to find out more about the Center and the Citizens' Council. Minister Olschowski was also the initiator of the networking event “AI in university teaching”, in which we participated as RHET AI.
Networking was also the focus of the networking meeting of the four Volkswagen Foundation-funded research centers of the Wisskomm-Hoch3 initiative in Kiel. In workshops, panel discussions and group sessions, Scicomm concepts were developed, the requirements and necessities of Scicomm were discussed and target groups for science communication were identified.
“My highlight this year was the center meeting in Kiel, where we were able to meet many nice people from the other centers for science communication and gain exciting insights into their work on science communication in great conversations. During the varied program that the Kiel Science Communication Center had put together, we had a lot of fun discussing the issue of target groups for science communication in a lively exchange.”
Monika Hanauska (Unit 1)
In 2024, we not only discussed (our) research, but also actively communicated knowledge. Salina Weber and Markus Gottschling traveled throughout Germany and held workshops on the topics of AI and science communication. However, team members from the other units were also on the road for workshops and presented the results of their research. Anne Burkhardt even traveled to beautiful Seville, Spain, to teach doctoral students and undergraduates.
“My personal RHET AI highlight was actually my trip to Seville. There I had the opportunity to present my research on AI in Latin American film and AI and global justice not only to a Spanish audience, but also to a Latin American audience, as some of the listeners were students from Latin American countries. This enlivened the discussion and gave me valuable feedback. This experience has encouraged me to make a concerted effort to expand my contacts with Latin American researchers and universities in the coming year — maybe next year I'll be able to give a lecture in Latin America — with any luck, you'll be able to read about it in next year's review.”
Anne Burkhardt (Unit 2)
In addition to workshops, we also have a lot to report this year in terms of research and teaching. Nina Kalwa and Markus Gottschling both offered seminars on rhetorical and linguistic perspectives on AI in the winter semester. Within the seminars, an interdisciplinary block weekend took place in December, where students were able to discuss the seminar questions with each other.
“My RHET-AI highlight of the year is the block seminar 'Linguistic and rhetorical approaches to artificial intelligence', which I offered this year as part of my teaching replacement for Noah Bubenhofer's professorship and in cooperation with one of my favorite RHET-AI people Markus Gottschling. Markus is not only super inspiring with his research, working with him is always twice as much fun.”
Nina Kalwa (former Unit 1)
Another pre-print of our anthology “Artificial Turn — Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence” has been published and we are looking forward to sending the final manuscript to the publisher in 2025. We can also report further publications from the RHET AI.
“My highlight was attending the annual conference of the Society for Applied Linguistics (GAL): we were able to present the new research focus “Artificial Intelligence” and received a lot of positive feedback. I was also able to present part of my dissertation and am still benefiting from it today. The sightseeing tours with Monika in Dresden and Leipzig made the highlight complete!”
Patrizia Attar (Unit 1)
Research lives not only through publications, but above all through discourse, which we also encourage: The Artificial Friday — our online colloquium on linguistic perspectives on artificial intelligence entered its fifth and sixth round in 2024. It was also a special honor for us to open the new GAL research focus “Artificial Intelligence” within the Artificial Friday in May. As RHET AI, we also took part in the GAL annual conference in Dresden in September and presented the new research focus there.
“My RHET AI highlight of the year was the Alpha Persuade conference in Los Angeles at the beginning of the year: a bunch of American rhetoric researchers like Steven Mailloux, Susan Jarrett and Roger Thompson combined with people from the internet business world, all talking about rhetoric and how important a rhetorical perspective on AI is. A lot also came out of the meeting: for example, our collaboration with the Center for Humane Technology in San Francisco and Stony Brook University. A great experience!”
Olaf Kramer (Spokesperson RHET AI)
“My highlights of the year were the trips to the NKRF9 conference in Copenhagen and the Forum Wisskomm in Berlin. The two events not only opened up exciting research perspectives in terms of content, but also enabled networking with other researchers and/or science communicators, which I find very enriching.”
Salina Weber (Unit 3)
Meeting is a good keyword. Because in 2024, we as RHET AI traveled a lot and were represented at conferences and forums worldwide. Whether at the AlphaPersuade in Irvine, the RSA Conference in Denver, the NKRF9 Conference in Copenhagen, the MoH Conference in Lund, the Ecsite in Ljubljana, the DG-PuK in Karlsruhe, the Forum Wisskomm in Berlin, the GLOTech in Dresden or the Medien Triennale Südwest in Stuttgart — we were there.
“My highlight this year was my participation in Ecsite 2024 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. On the one hand, the exchange with international researchers about science communication with and about artificial intelligence in a variety of (sometimes very creative!) formats was very enriching. And on the other hand, it was a great experience to present and discuss projects from RHET AI in front of this diverse audience of experts.”
Anna Köhler (Unit 1)
At the end of the year, our Tübingen conference “Persuasive Algorithms — The Rhetoric of Generative AI” was another highlight for us. From November 12–14, researchers from all over the world gathered at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Tübingen to discuss the foundations, functionalities and communicative implications of Generative AI.
“My RHET AI highlight was the conference in November. It was not only my first academic conference, but also one of the first events as part of the team. I took away a lot of food for thought from the conference and had the opportunity to network inside and outside the Center.”
Rafaela Pfeil (Unit 3)
“I was lucky enough to travel a lot with RHET AI this year, gaining very different impressions of research on AI and rhetoric. However, my highlight was a local one: our conference “Persuasive Algorithms? The Rhetorics of Generative AI” in November, which brought together many people from these trips and from the various discussions and conversations I was able to have this year in Tübingen. It was wonderful to bring a wide variety of disciplines into conversation with each other!”
Markus Gottschling (Project Coordinator; Unit 3)
2024 marks the end of an eventful year at RHET AI. We are grateful for all the opportunities we were presented with in 2024, the many projects we were able to implement, great cooperation partners who support and enrich us and, of course, our brilliant team that makes it all possible. With these prospects, 2025 can only be wonderful, we are looking forward to it and wish you all a happy new year and a great start to 2025!
