No. 111/2020

35 HUMBOLDT KOSMOS 111/2020 FOCUS ON GERMANY DFKI, GERMAN RESEARCH CENTER FOR ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE APPLICATIONS FOR INDUSTRY AND SMES The German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, founded as a public/private body in Kaiserslautern and Saarbrücken in 1988, brings together large corpo- rations from all over the world, medium-sized enterprises and research institutions. The cen- tre now employs more than a thousand staff who work at five different sites to develop AI solutions for various sectors – from the auto- motive industry via agriculture and shipping through to trade. “Many innovations have their origins here, such as the principles for the first versions of the globally used translation programme, Google Translate,” says Wolfgang Wahlster , professor of computer science and founding director of DFKI. According to Wahlster, AI research in Germany has a 70-year tradition and is still two or three years ahead of other countries when it comes to applications in manufacturing industries. Wahl- ster: “If that’s what you’re interested in – the keyword here is Industry 4.0 – Germany is the place to be.” In Cyber Valley, between Stuttgart and Tübingen, a major AI research alliance is emerging, combining academia and busi- ness. The neuroscience fields, which want to link the new Tübingen AI Center with AI research, are one of the main drivers. “It’s a pulsating research environment,” says Peter Dayan , who became the first Humboldt Professor for Artificial Intelligence at the University of Tübingen and director of the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics at the beginning of 2020. A theo- retical neuroscientist, he investigates how people man- age to make good decisions in an uncertain world and how these processes can be transferred to artificial sys- tems. Jessica Heesen , philosopher at the International Center for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities (IZEW) at the University of Tübingen, would like ethical reflec- tion to be an integral part of AI projects like this from the word go. The head of the Tübingen Research Focus “Media Ethics and Information Technology” argues for value-based AI development that monitors the origin of data, communicates the goals of algorithms and focusses on the societal significance of its applications. “Integrated research can make this work well, but only if technology and ethics cooperate on a level playing field.” DFKI TÜBINGEN TÜBINGEN IN SWABIA’S CYBER VALLEY