Research at IRIS
IRIS research is interdisciplinary and interfaculty. It focuses on the societal impacts of intelligent systems on society within politics, literature, machine learning, economics, and education. In addition to the three IRIS3D independent research groups, the six IRIS3D seed-funded projects, and the two IRIS researchers, there are projects funded by SimTech and organized by IRIS members. IRIS also connects with the Participation and Deliberation Labs of ZIRIUS and the Platform for Reflection and Outrech of SimTech.
Research Groups
Research Projects
- Dynamics of Polarization on Online Platforms and AI Remedies (IRIS3D)
- Electric Dreams: Literary Narratives as Tools for Critically Reflecting on Intelligent Systems
- Engaging Student Diversity in Self-Adaptive Learning Management Systems through Intelligent Tutoring (IRIS3D)
- Generative AI and Public Reason – Democratic Implications of LLM (IRIS3D)
- Measuring Populism with AI
- Reflecting on Societal and Organizational Impacts of AI (SimTech)
- SoepSim - Improving agent-based modeling by utilizing large-scale survey data (SimTech)
- The impact of user momentary emotional state on trust in a faulty chatbot
- The influence of network structures on group fairness in online political discussions (IRIS3D)
- Thought experiments combined with physics simulations and machine learning in a human-AI learning context (IRIS3D)
- Towards human-robot co-agency: AI and feminist technoscience perspectives for diversity, demography, and democracy on human-robot-collaboration in architecture (IRIS3D)
Reflecting Intelligent Systems for Diversity, Demography, and Democracy (IRIS3D)
“Reflecting Intelligent Systems for Diversity, Demography, and Democracy (IRIS3D)”, started January 2023 with three new Research Groups funded by the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts of the State of Baden-Württemberg (Ministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst Baden-Württemberg)
- Computational Digital Psychology - Group Sindermann (IRIS3D)
- Diversity-Aware NLP Intelligent Systems (DANIS) - Group Falenska (IRIS3D)
- Ethics of Generative AI - Group Hagendorff (IRIS3D)
These research groups are working to develop and carry out new research programs that contribute to the reflection on the societal impacts of intelligent systems related to the theme of the project.
IRIS3D is embedded in the Cyber Valley ecosystem and the interdisciplinary Stuttgart Research Focus Interchange Forum for Reflecting on Intelligent Systems (IRIS).
IRIS3D Seed Funding has been applied to support six new interdisciplinary and interfaculty research projects:
- Dynamics of Polarization on Online Platforms and AI Remedies (IRIS3D)
- Engaging Student Diversity in Self-Adaptive Learning Management Systems through Intelligent Tutoring (IRIS3D)
- Generative AI and Public Reason – Democratic Implications of LLM (IRIS3D)
- The influence of network structures on group fairness in online political discussions (IRIS3D)
- Thought experiments combined with physics simulations and machine learning in a human-AI learning context (IRIS3D)
- Towards human-robot co-agency: AI and feminist technoscience perspectives for diversity, demography, and democracy on human-robot-collaboration in architecture (IRIS3D)
Applicants: Prof. Dr. Steffen Staab, Jun.-Prof. Dr. Maria Wirzberger
Duration: 04/2022 - 12/2026
Funding: Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts Baden-Wuerttemberg (funding scheme "Artificial Intelligence & Society")
Report by the University: 3,400,00.00 €
Research by IRIS Members
In search of explainable and interpretable machine learning with philosophy and physics
Machine learning (ML) algorithms are permeating our everyday and public lives with increasing intensity. They make predictions, but why they ‘decide’ one way and not another often remains unintelligible to us: in a sense they are “opaque”. In our project, we want to understand how this opacity arises, and whether or how it could be retroactively reversed. To do this, we want to interpret the nature of the (implicit) abstractions that ML inherently generates, using insights from physics and other theories of complexity. Our working hypothesis is that the complexity of ML and the difficulty of understanding certain components of the learning process together give rise to this opacity problem. In this sense, a solution does not call for simply “more understanding”, or “less complexity”, but for a sensible reduction of complexity. By this we mean abstractions that are adequate and simplifications that are non-trivial, to ensure access to well-grounded understanding. In our project, we will develop tools to analyze the complexity of ML algorithms in new ways and find reductions that make sense from the perspectives of many-body physics and philosophy.
Funding: Heidelberg Academy of Science and the Humanities
IRIS Member Involved: Dr. Miriam Klopotek
More Information: Project descritption
Funding: European Research Council (ERC Advanced Grant)
Applicants: Prof. Dr. André Bächtiger
Duration: 04/2022 - 03/2027
More Information: Project description
Institute for Natural Language Processing
This research focuses on Natural Language Processing applications to support (and understand) deliberative processes (from political discourse to e-deliberation) and the Interpretability (and cognitive plausibility) of Natural Language Processing models.
IRIS Members Involved: Dr. Gabriella Lapesa
More Information: Powering up E-DELIBeration: towards AI-supported moderation
Institute for Modelling and Simulation of Biomechanical Systems
This research focuses on human physical interaction with the environment using digital human body models.
Research Questions:
- Do these models allow for unbiased and ideology-free decision-making?
- Do these models enable improved human-centered and barrier-free design of the built environment?
IRIS Members Involved: Prof. Dr. Syn Schmitt
More Information: Research in Computational Biophysics and Biorobotics
Funding: Volkswagen Foundation (funding scheme "Artificial Intelligence - Its Impact on Tomorrow's Society")
Applicants (related to IRIS): Prof. Dr. Jonas Kuhn
Duration: 10/2021 - 09/2025
More Information: Project description
Department of Teaching and Learning with Intelligent Systems
The equal professional participation of people with special needs (e.g. people on the autism spectrum or attention deficit disorder) enriches collaboration through diverse perspectives and strengths. However, difficulties in social interaction often lead to the failure of professional life plans despite high cognitive abilities. Innovative technology-supported training measures can take a preventive approach at this point and strengthen interpersonal skills through learning experiences in a protected setting.
IRIS Members Involved: Jun.-Prof. Dr. Maria Wirzberger
Duration: 09/2021 - 08/2024
Funding: The project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research within the funding scheme "Interactive systems in virtual and real environments - Innovative technologies for the digital society".
More Information: UFO Project