Final Conference of the HiAICS Research Group

AI in Research: Predictive Practices

University of Bonn, Department of Media Studies, March 25-27, 2026
Lennéstraße 6, 4th floor, Room 4.001, D – 53113 Bonn

We look forward to welcoming you to Bonn. Please be aware that our capacity is limited. If you are interested in attending the conference as a guest, please register by March 17:
https://forms.gle/w3peFkQ1AsbeFVnx7

Wednesday, March 25, 2026

2:00 PM	Welcome and Introduction
3:00 PM	Robin von Hardenberg: animAR – Turning Pictures into Conversations
3:30 PM	[Keynote] Gabriele Gramelsberger: Experimenting with Predictive AI Architectures in Science
4:30 PM	Coffee Break
5:00 PM	Martin Warnke: Large Language Models as Simulative Manifestations of Structuralist Linguistics
5:30 PM	Josephine Diecke & Simon Spiegel: VIAN 1.0: Bridging Human Annotation and AI in Audiovisual Analysis
6:00 PM	[Keynote] Alexander Waibel: Will We Need Scientists in 2050?
8:00 PM	Dinner

Thursday, March 26, 2026

9:30 AM	Fabian Retkowski: The AI Co-Ethnographer: How Far Can Automation Take Qualitative Research?
10:15 AM	Coffee Break
10:45 AM	Anna Echterhölter & Markus Ramsauer: The World Integrated Model and the Solutionist Promise of Artificial Intelligence. World Resource Databases and the Preparedness Promise at UNEP
11:30 AM	Andreas Sudmann & Jens Schröter: Using AI to Study AI. Epistemic Media, Recursive Observers, and the Politics of Prediction
12:15 PM	Lunch
2:00 PM	Tobias Matzner: Simulating Results: On the Practices of Tying Scientific Meaning to Vector Spaces
2:30 PM	Evangelos Pournaras: Generative AI Voting: Fair Collective Choice is Resilient to LLM Biases and Inconsistencies
3:00 PM	Valentina Fedchenko: Building AI Tools for Scientific Research in Under-Represented Languages
3:30 PM	Coffee Break
4:00 PM	Johannes Breuer: How AI Affects the Replicability and Reproducibility of Scientific Research
4:30 PM	Jennifer D’Souza: DeepResearch: Recursive Agentic Workflows for Complex Scientific Question Answering and LLM-as-a-Judge Quality Feedback in the Absence of Gold Standards
5:00 PM	Alexander Winkler, Christian Djefall, Gabriele Schabacher, Orit Halpern, Anne Dippel & Christian Bauckhage: Podium Discussion: Expert Round
8:00 PM	Dinner

Friday, March 27, 2026

9:30 AM	Michael Friedman: Rethinking Mathematical Intuition in the Age of AI
10:00 AM	Egle Rindzeviciute: From Governing the Global Biosphere to Automating Reflexivity: The Last Utopias of Anticipatory Governance?
10:30 AM	Coffee Break
11:00 AM	Lukas Griessl: GenAI in the Qualitative Social Sciences and Humanities: Enduring Ambivalence in Hybrid Epistemic Practices
11:30 AM	Jan N. van Rijn: Automated Machine Learning for Science
12:00 PM	[Keynote] Markus Gabriel: To be announced.
01:00 PM	Closing Remarks and Farewell
01:15 PM	End of Conference

Information & Downloads

Detailed program with abstracts and biographical information:

Detailed-Program_HiAICS_AI-in-Research_Predictive_Practices (pdf)

Conference description with literature list:

HiAICS_AI in Research_Predictive_Practices_March_25-27_Conference_Description (pdf)

Do you have any further questions about the conference? Please feel free to send us an email at contact.howisaichangingscience@gmail.com.

We would like to thank the VW Foundation for funding the conference.