Seminar Tübingen AI Exhibition
(Summer term 2022)

Time and Date

Lecturer: Ulrike von Luxburg, parts jointly with Thomas Thiemeyer
Time: Default meeting time is each wednesday, 14:15 - 16:00, MvL6 (= lecture hall in the ground floor of Maria-von-Linden-Strasse 6); some weeks deviate, see detailed schedule below
Credits: 2 SWS, 3 CP
Registration: has passed already

News

Excursion: Our train leaves Tuebingen Hbf on Monday, 9.5. at 6:11 in the morning, track 3. Please be there early enough. We will return Wednesday, 11.5. at 16:01.

Quick links

Ilias
Anthropology lecture series on AI and Society (mostly in German, all lectures start at 18:15 either in lecture hall 24 in Kupferbau or sometimes on zoom)

Detailed planning (still somewhat instable)

• 16.2. Information meeting on zoom, Slides
• 20.4. (Hoersaal 24, Kupferbau) First meeting, making plans, collecting keywords about the public debate on AI.
• 27.4.(at MvL6) Mapping the public debate on AI. In preparation, everybody needs to dig out newspaper articles. Links to the archives of FAZ, SZ, etc:
  • Archiv der SZ
  • Archiv der FAZ
  • BILD und andere Tageszeitungen
• 4.5. (at Tuebingen castle) Getting to know the anthropology students. We meet at 12:30 at the Ludwig Uhland Institut (LUI) at Tuebingen castle for a joint lunch. Seminar 14:15-16:00 will take place at the castle as well.
• 9.-11.5. Excursion to Dresden, jointly with anthropologists.
• 18.5. No meeting this wednesday! Instead, the curator of the Dresden exhibition, Yasemin Keskintepe, is going to visit us in Tuebingen:
  19.5. at 17:00: visiting the Stadtmuseum (meeting point right in front of the museum); 18:15 (Lecture hall 24, Kupferbau, in German): presenation in the LUI colloquium by the Dresden curator, Yasemin Keskintepe.
  20.5. 9:00 - 12:00 (at Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems). Workshop with Yasemin Keskintepe. You present / we discuss first ideas for exhibits. It will take place in the big lecture hall of the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Max-Planck-Ring 4, Tuebingen (lecture hall is in the ground floor; be on time because someone needs to let us into the building).
• 25.5. (at the castle, round meeting room) Planning the exhibition.
• 1.6. (at MvL6) Consolidate ideas for exhibits and form teams.
• 8.6. and 15.6. No meetings (Pfingsten)
• 22.6. Meeting at MvL6. We will discuss the ``five objects''. Each group should report about the current state.
• 29.6. (MvL6) Presentation of the plan for the five objects, jointly with anthropologists
  30.6. 18:15 (at Kupferbau, in German): presentation of the results of the anthropology students, LUI colloquium. Just if you are interested.
• 6.7. Overall discussion (?): do the things fit togetgher? (at MvL6?) (anthropologiest will attend as well ? )
• 13.7. No meeting (Instead, if you like: Conference Machine Learning in Science)
• 20.7. Last meeting (at MvL6): Hand in final reports, discuss how to proceed
• 27.7. No meeting!

Background information about the seminar

Application deadline and registration on Ilias has passed.

Background

In spring 2023, the Stadtmuseum Tübingen (Museum of Tübingen) is planning to hold an exhibition about AI: What is AI, what can it do, what is the critical debate about AI about, how is all of this related to Tübingen, etc. The purpose of this seminar is to form groups of students who plan an ``object'' that could be shown in the exhibition. Jointly with anthropology students, we would discuss and learn how a good exhibition and an "interesting object" would look like, and come up with a detailed plan for each object.

The AI exhibition is being curated by Thomas Thiemeyer (Institute of Historical and Cultural Anthropology, University of Tübingen) jointly with a group of students in his department. The anthropology students and computer science students will work together in this seminar.

The plan

After getting to know each other, the seminar starts with a 3-day excursion (May 9-11) to the Hygienemusem Dresden, which currently holds an AI exhibition. Participating in this excursion would be mandatory (travel and accomodation costs largely covered by us, you would have to contribute at most 50 Euros). Then students form small groups, each of the groups drafting one “object” for the exhibition. By the end of the summer term, groups have a clear plan of an object they would like to build for our exhibition. Everything is possible, we want your ideas and creativity! All this would happen in close contact with the team of anthropologists. The seminar would conclude with a written report of each group that describes the object that they have planned.

As a follow-up, the idea would be that all the teams actually implement and build their object until November 2022. This could be credited as a practical machine learning (6 ECTS) or a research project in the ML master (9 ECTS), or even lead to a master thesis.

Requirements for participation

(1) Good machine learning knowledge: Do you have attended or will attend in summer 2022 at least two of the three major MSc machine running lectures (Statistical ML, Probabilistic ML, Deep ML).
(2) You are in Tübingen at least until February 2023 (when the exhibition will start).
(3) You are willing to put the work into building an object for the exhibition. This means to take part in the seminar, but additionally to spend a lot of work in building, programming, implementing, and presenting the object. You could get study credit for it through a practical machine learning or a research project in the ML master, or by corresponding modules in the CS master, or even a master thesis. We would need your commitment that you would at least seriously try it, and have enough time until Nov 2022 to finalize your object.
(4) You are interested in the general discussions about AI and its impact on society.
As a reward, you get an excursion to Dresden, you get to work closely with students with a completely different background, and there is the chance that all of Tübingen is going to talk about "your object" in the end.
Sounds cool? If you are lucky, we still have some places left. In order to apply, please send an email to Ulrike von Luxburg as follwos:

Subject: AI exhibition Contents: 1. My Name: xxx 2. My email address: xxx 3. My study program: xxx (eg, computer science, machine learning, ...) 4. When do you plan to finish your degree? xxx 5. What is your motivation for taking part in the seminar? (1 paragraph) 6. What is your background in machine learning? (Wich lectures, seminars, etc have you attended or are you planning to attend in Summer 2022)?