As I see IT – The scientific podcast of the Saarland Informatics Campus

Guest: Prof. Dr. Christian Theobalt

Applications like Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, DragGAN and Dall E are currently on everyone's lips - they use artificial intelligence to generate impressive images out of nothing or to seemingly easily change existing ones. Such systems present challenges and opportunities in equal measure. In this podcast episode, we take a look behind the scenes of image-generating artificial intelligence, discuss risks and potential, and examine how this technology can be used sensibly and safely.

Further information:
Visual Computing and Artificial Intelligence Department of Christian Theobalt

Saarbrücken Research Center for Visual Computing, Interaction and Artificial Intelligence as a strategic research partnership with Google

Guest: Prof. Dr. Vera Demberg
Language models like ChatGPT or Google's Bard are currently attracting a lot of attention. They are praised as revolutionary innovations, but are also met with great skepticism and fear. In this podcast episode, we take a closer look at what these models can really achieve, discuss their opportunities and challenges, and ask ourselves what they could do to us as a society.

Further information:
Chair of Computer Science and Computational Linguistics by Vera Demberg

Current ERC project by Vera Demberg

Guest: Prof Dr. Holger Hermanns
Whether it’s about getting new music recommendations or understanding how an autonomous vehicle finds its way: behind it are algorithms that support us in making decisions or even make them for us. But how these algorithms arrive at their results is not always clear or easy to understand. In this podcast episode, we look at the research that is focused on making these processes more transparent and understandable – in order to increase the trustworthiness and benefit of this software for all of us.

Further information:
Chair of “Dependable Systems and Software” by Prof. Dr. Holger Hermanns

Website of the Transregional Collaborative Research Center “Fundamentals of Understandable Software Systems”

Project website “LolaDrives”

Guest: Prof. Dr. Isabel Valera
Systems based on machine learning are the invisible helpers of our time. They are used in many, sometimes very critical areas – for example, such systems are involved in deciding who gets a loan, who gets a job or even in sensitive decisions in the criminal justice system. But how fair are these digital decision-makers? This podcast episode takes a closer look at ML systems, discusses their challenges and how such systems can be made better and fairer.

Further Information:

Prof. Dr. Isabel Valera’s Machine Learning Group (https://machinelearning.uni-saarland.de/)

More info on the ERC Starting Grant “Society Aware Machine Learning” (https://machinelearning.uni-saarland.de/society-aware-ml/)

Guest: Prof. Dr. Ingmar Weber

Advancing digitalization is fundamentally changing our everyday lives – school, work, friendships, everything is affected. But with this upheaval comes challenges: new problems such as digital inequality and potential threats to democracy from mass misinformation and online hate must be solved. This podcast episode introduces the research field of “Societal Computing” and how it looks for creative and sustainable solutions to positively shape digital change.

Further information:

Website of the “Interdisciplinary Institute for Societal Computing” led by Professors Ingmar Weber and Daniela Braun.

Information about Ingmar Weber’s Alexander von Humboldt Professorship for Artificial Intelligence.