With the EU AI Act entering into force under the New Legislative Framework, the standardization of AI technologies transitions from a conceptual goal to a legal mandate. In recent years, efforts have been made to evaluate the societal impacts of AI technolo- gies beyond mere legal safeguards, aiming to “operationalize,” “standardize,” and even “certify” ethics. At the same time, actual ethical concerns regarding the operationalization of ethics have grown. In the forthcoming conference, our main questions focus on hidden stakeholders, values, and how profit-making might interfere with certifying and standard- izing AI technologies. 

More information⁴

At the fall meeting of the "Deutsche Medienfrauen" ("German Media Women"), Dr. Julia Maria Mönig discussed current cases of discrimination and short-term problems of artificial intelligence applications, as well as the potential opportunities offered by the technology, under the question “Disadvantage pre-programmed? - The gender problem of AI”.

More Information⁶

Roundtable Discussion, March 20th 2025, 19:00, Deutsches Museum Bonn 

In this round table discussion, we will examine “trustworthy AI” from the perspective of business, politics, computer science and ethics. We talk about this with Tim Achtermeyer, the NRW state chairman of 
Bündnis 90/ Die Grünen; André Christ, Co-Founder & General Manager of SAP LeanIX;  Dr. Florian Mai, 
computer scientist and junior research group leader at the Conversational AI and Social Analytics (CAISA) Lab at the University of Bonn and Dr. Julia Maria Mönig, 
philosopher and ethicist and project manager of the philosophy sub-project in the KI.NRW flagship project “Certified AI”. 

More Information ⁸

Workshop, February 28th 2025, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India

In today’s rapidly evolving world, advanced technologies like AI are not only transforming economies and governance but also reshaping societal values and human coexistence. While those technologies are already widely discussed within the disciplines of computer science, economics or applied ethics, their development and application concern core issues of the humanities. Over the course of the conference, we want to discuss not only how these technologies should be designed and used, but also how digital technologies influence concepts of humanity or society.

More information⁹

March 13 2025, 09:30 am, CST

Join us for a thought-provoking morning at the Center for Science and Thought, where leading AI scholars and experts take on some of the most overused terms in AI discourse—and dismantle them.

More information¹⁰

Certified AI¹²

The aim of the project is to develop procedures to examine generally accepted standards for AI systems and their verification, as well as to explore business models for an AI certification. Our research investigates the ethical-philosophical significance of these dimensions.

Desirable Digitalisation¹³

Rethinking AI for Just and Sustainable Futures.
We investigate how to design AI (artificial intelligence) and other digital technologies in a responsible way, placing the questions of social justice and environmental sustainability at the very heart of our work.

Our research program is a collaboration between the Universities of Cambridge and Bonn and numerous international partners, and is funded by the Mercator Foundation in Germany.

Borderline Consciousness¹⁴

The 'Towards New Demarcation Criteria for Borderline Consciousness' Project is an interdisciplinary project involving a collaboration between philosophers of Bonn and Cambridge and neuroscientists from the epilepsy clinic in Bonn. Its main purpose is to create an international research forum to develop new criteria for determining whether and when non-human entities, such as non-linguistic animals, new brain organisms, or advanced AI systems can be considered conscious.

This summer semester,  most of the sessions of the CST AI research group will be convened by Audrey Borowski, as part of her "AI and the Digital" Seminar Series.

More Information¹⁶