Weinviertel, on Sunday © Birgit Forgó-Feldner
I got a nasty cold (no Covid, no flue, fortunately) which meant that I had to spend Friday-Monday more or less completly at home. That’s why Birgit was out with Daisy and too this picture of a late winter afternoon in beautiful Weinviertel (actually, it’s beautiful if you still manage not to see the devastations coming with the massive soil consumption). Otherwise it looks more like this:
(Source: NÖN)
Retrospect
Leo Reisinger Symposion
Due to my cold I couldn’t be there in person, but Markus Holzweber kindly sent me pictures so that I know that it was rather crowded
©Niklas Fattinger
I followed the livestream and was very touched by Gerhart Bruckmann’s presence.
I remember Bruckmann teaching me statistics at UNIVIE’s summer school in Strobl/Wolfgangsee in 1988. It was the first time I came across the Club of Rome and “The Limits to Growth. A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind”.
Bruckmann is (still) not shy to be clear in his statements. This is him speaking about the early beginnings of Leo Reisinger and legal informatics at UNIVIE’s lawschool in the early 80-ies.
We uploaded the full 2 hours symposion on YouTube.
All credits for this very nice event go to Dr. Markus Holzweber with whom I have been working now for 20 years.
#arsboni
Professor Dorffner from MedUni Wien gave us orientation on how this University guides students and staff through issues of good scientific practice and AI use. Dorffner wrote his habilitation on AI 30 years ago - so he does have an overview.
Media Coverage
The idea that asylum seekers should receive a payment card instead of cash triggers some data protection issues about which I was interviewed on in Der Standard. Heise has a story on Meta’s upcoming policy that AI created content has to be marked with some quotes from me. The story is rewritten/shared on Meedia. And a YouTube channel reuses parts of an ORF-interview with me (I do not really understand, why, btw).
Prospect
Martin Selmayr
As mentioned last week, Prof. Dr. Martin Selmayr will be with our department for the next months. The feedback we received - internally and externally - on this cooperation was very positive. I am still very humbled by the opportunities this brings. The story is still in the media, recently in Der Standard, for example.
We are currently working on further details of Professor Selmayr’s cooperation with the department. Several plans are in the pipeline, including joint teaching and research events. One idea is a joint seminar with him and Professor Eisenberger and Professor Wendehorst in the upcoming summer term. We are currently working on the details but I am very confident that this will produce very positive results for everyone involved.
#arsboni
Boris Kandov, inventor of JusProfi and with us at the department, will speak (in German) on Wednesday at 18.00 CET.
AI (in Teaching)
I am currently writing on the second iteration of UNIVIE’s handbook on AI in teaching. The first (public) edition (with > 2500 downloads) is available on Phaidra. Comments are very welcome!
There are also several lecture series organised on this for the upcoming term. I am aware of at least tow of which I am part of. One organised by Professor Rathkolb, in cooperation with the city of Vienna (I will most likely speak on April 11), one at the law school (with me speaking on the AI Act on April 10). And, last not least, UNIVIE’s “semester question” will most likely deal with AI and knowledge.
When one looks into our currrent list of third party funded research projects one can see that almost half of them deals with some aspects of AI (law) now and there is more to come.
Daisy
One thing is for sure, Daisy doesn’t like the windy (and rainy) conditions we are having these days!
© Felix Forgó
Have a wonderful week!
Kind regards
Nikolaus (Forgó)
P.S. I am speechless about the terrible news that Alexandra Föderl-Schmid is missed that have been circulating since Thursday. As there is - at the moment I am writing this PS (Thursday evening) - still hope that this will not have the catastrophic outcome many are speculating about and as this touches so many topics I am permanently dealing with so fundamentally that I can’t write about them out of the pocket in the very last minute, I hope that it’s justifiable that I did not change the original text of this newsletter that I had finished early Thursday morning.