News (4)

Prof. Dr. Sonja Utz (Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien IWM & Eberhard Karls University Tübingen) Date: 14. January 2025 Time: 18:30 Street: Schnoor 27 Location: Bremer Presse-Club Abstract Language-based agents such as chatbots, voice assistants, and more recently, large language models, have become common tools for information retrieval. Assessing the quality of the information provided by these agents is crucial. This (…)

Recently, a new working paper by ComAI-members Prof. Dr. Andreas Hepp and Prof. Dr. Wiebke Loosen together with Prof. em. Dr. Uwe Hasebrink entitled “The Refiguration of Public Communication: A Relational and Process-oriented Perspective” was published. The publication addresses the concepts of “public sphere” and its “structural change” in communication and media research. It is (…)

How is social communication changing with the profound transformation of the digital media environment through communicative artificial intelligence? What consequences, risks, but also potentials are associated with the widespread use of this new technology in various social domains? The “Communicative AI” (ComAI) research group, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Austrian Science (…)

The Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI), together with the Hamburg Leibniz Institute for Media Research and the universities of Graz and Vienna, has successfully applied to the German Research Foundation for a research unit. The topic: “Communicative Artificial Intelligence.” Nine research projects plus a coordination project will investigate the question of how (…)

Prof. Dr. Christian Greiffenhagen (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China) Date: 25. June 2024 Time: 18:30 Address: Schnoor 27 Building: Bremer Presse-Club Room: Club 27 Abstract This paper studies customers entering automated self-service hotels in China and using a facial recognition kiosk for registration. Based on video-recordings of 674 cases of customers checking in, we show that, as is common (…)

Prof. Dr. Benedetta Brevini (NYU, USA & University of Sydney, Australia) Date: 18. June 2024 Time: 18:30 Address: Schnoor 27, Bremen Building: Bremer Presse-Club Room: Club 27 Abstract Despite the growing concern over the environmental harms of ICT systems (Ferreboeuf, 2019) Artificial Intelligence (AI) gets principally heralded as the key technology to solve contemporary challenges, including the Climate crisis, which (…)

Prof. Dr. Axel Bruns (Queensland University of Technology, Australia) Date: 30. April 2024 Time: 18:30 Address: Schnoor 27, Bremen Building: Bremer Presse-Club Room: Club 27 Abstract Comprehensive analyses of diverging patterns in the journalistic coverage of major controversial topics are often limited by the volume of content that such analyses can realistically process. In-depth research typically relies on the manual coding (…)

Prof. Dr. Petter Bae Brandtzaeg (University of Oslo, Norway) Date: 30. January 2024 Time: 18:00 Address: Enrique-Schmidt-Straße 7, Bremen Building: SFG Room: SFG 1040 Abstract In this talk, I will explore the transformative potential of communicative artificial intelligence (AI) on the foundations of free speech. While optimistic perspectives propose that AI will catalyze and equalize political participation, others express concern (…)

Dr. Arne Hintz (Cardiff University, UK) Date: 16. January 2024 Time: 18:00 Address: Enrique-Schmidt-Straße 5, Bremen Building: Cartesium Room: Rotunde Abstract The roll-out of data analytics, algorithmic decision-making and AI has severe implications for democratic participation and state-citizen relations. While data systems deployed in public services and for state interventions can have severe implications for people’s lives, those who are (…)

Prof. Dr. David Gunkel (Northern Illinois University, USA) Date: 5. December 2023 Time: 18:00 Address Enrique-Schmidt-Straße 5, Bremen Building: Cartesium Room: Rotunde Abstract The question concerning the moral status of others is typically decided on the basis of pre-existing psychological properties. I contest this standard operating procedure by identifying three seemingly intractable philosophical problems with the properties approach that become (…)

Prof. Dr. Nick Couldry (LSE, UK) Date: 28. November 2023 Time: 18:00 Address: Enrique-Schmidt-Straße 5, Bremen Building: Cartesium Room: Rotunde Abstract This talk will reflect on AI from the perspective of the framework of data colonialism (Couldry and Mejias, 2019). AI, in practical terms, represents the application of a hugely increase in computing capacity, but from the perspective of data (…)

Prof. Dr. Julia Velkova (Linköping University, Sweden) Date: 21. November 2023 Time: 18:00 Address: Enrique-Schmidt-Straße 5, Bremen Building: Cartesium Room: Rotunde Abstract Amidst intensifying debates about the possibilities and harms with AI and automated-decision making, their energetic needs and scale of operations are also soaring. How much is the carbon footprint of an AI? How many watts of energy does (…)