Projects
Current projects that we participate in:
DecEnt - Ethical, praxeological, and neuroscientific aspects of Decisional Enhancement
Funding: The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)
With a rich methodological repertoire including conceptual and normative analysis, praxeological approaches and studies in decision neuroscience, we will explore the ethical implications of decisional enhancement. DecEnt aims to provide a nuanced understanding of how decisions can be improved, and propose how methods of decisional enhancement can be applied in an autonomy-supporting, and thus acceptable and beneficial, way. Insights from DecEnt will inform larger-scale, collective efforts in improving decision making.
Partners:
- Universität Siegen
- Deutsches Institut für Ernährungsforschung Potsdam-Rehbrücke (DIfE)
VEREINT
Funding: The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)
VEREINT is an interdisciplinary project for the development and application of technologies of connectedness. This refers to those interactive technologies that enable, mediate and enhance intimacy, closeness and connectedness between people over distance. As a companion project to application-oriented collaborative projects, VEREINT investigates the fundamental principles of these technologies. This includes investigating and testing design principles that will be used in such human-machine interactions, the sociological and psychological conditions for their acceptance and safe use, and the ethical challenges posed by the introduction and deployment of such connectedness technologies. The Applied Ethics Group addresses conceptual and normative questions in VEREINT: how do connectedness technologies change our understanding and norms of intimacy and closeness? What is the role of trust in these technologies, and do design specifications alter our perceptions of intimacy or connectedness? How can boundaries of acceptability be set that are informed by acceptance research?
Partners:
- Universität Siegen
- Universität Duisburg-Essen
- Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
- Hochschule Flensburg
NeuroSys
Funding: The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)
Neuromorphic hardware mimics the human brain in that logic and memory are not physically separated. This enables massive parallelization and avoids the energy-intensive and time-consuming data transfer that is one of the major bottlenecks of today's computers.
The goal of NeuroSys is to establish the greater Aachen area as the world's leading location for research, development and exploitation of neuromorphic hardware in artificial intelligence (AI). The long-term goal is to transform the excellent basic research in Aachen and at Forschungszentrum Jülich on memristive materials and devices into a viable technology base for future European AI hardware. The vision is the technological independence of Europe in this ethically and economically sensitive area.
The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) funds this project in the "Clusters4Future" competition. "Clusters4Future" is part of the German government's High-Tech Strategy 2025. The open-topic competition focuses on regional innovation networks that combine the strengths of the players, tap into emerging fields of innovation and develop solutions for the challenges of the future.
Partners:
- Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH
- RWTH Aachen
- AMO GmbH Aachen
- Axtron AG
- aiXscale Photonics
- Gremse-IT GmbH
- Elmos Semiconductor
- Black Semiconductor
- STAR Healthcare Management GmbH
- aixACCT Systems GmbH
- AppTek
- Clinomic Group GmbH
- Chamber of Industry and Commerce Aachen
- RWTH Innovation GmbH
bridgingAI
Funding: The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)
The project “bridgingAI: Building Brigdes to AI Across Disciplines” seeks to provide students with relevant AI competencies, regardless of discipline studied. RWTH is thus tackling a challenge currently faced by many universities. Drawing on the University’s AI expertise, the goal is to develop scalable solutions that can be made available to other higher education institutions in the form of Open Educational Resources (OER). The aim of bridgingAI is to provide students with the necessary skills to use, assess, and develop artificial intelligence applications, enabling them to contribute to shaping science, industry and society in the age of artificial intelligence. It is one of the strategic goals of RWTH as an interdisciplinary, integrated university of technology to develop and maintain interdisciplinary AI competencies.
Partners:
- Research and Teaching Area of Learning Technologies
- Computer Vision Group
- Chair for Mathematics of Information Processing
- Chair for Applied Stochastics
- Chair for Process and Data Science
- Institute for Data Science in Mechanical Engineering
- Center für Lehr- und Lernservices
ELSA-AID
Funding: The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)
Artificial intelligence (AI) promises significant improvements in healthcare and is considered pioneering technology in precision medicine. Especially as regards diagnostics, where AI can be used to automatically collect, evaluate, merge data and make therapeutic decisions, the benefits for patients can be enormous. The main goal of ELSA-AID is a sensitive analysis of ethical, social and professional questions of artificial intelligence (AI)-based diagnostics in the context of precision medicine. The aim of the project is to facilitate the understanding of the effects of AI in diagnostics on doctors from various disciplines and their relationship with patients and to create the basis for a health environment that creates a synergy between human expertise and AI skills.
Partners:
- Institute for Experimental Molecular Imaging, Universitätsklinikum Aachen
- Fraunhofer MEVIS, Institut für Digitale Medizin
InviDas
Funding: The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)
The InviDas consortium will develop a digital platform via which the data protection implications for the collection and transfer of personal data can be understood. People of all technological generations and age groups should be helped to understand abstract technical and legal relationships and consequently to make conscious and reflective decisions. A visual, interactive experience of the previously invisible digital processes is intended to improve understanding and trust in technology, particularly regarding the sovereignty of digital-legal decision-making. This is achieved through a visual, playful approach based on the needs of users. The knowledge and instruments from InviDas should also be available to the broader public, advance the social discourse on digital sovereignty in health data, and be used for society as a whole with regard to transferability and generalizability.
Partners:
- Gesellschaft Für Informatik
- stiftung digitale-chancen
- Garmin Würzburg GmbH
- RWTH Aachen University, Institut für Arbeitswissenschaft
- RWTH Aachen University Software Engineering
- Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, Lehrstuhl für Privatsphäre und Sicherheit in Informationssystemen
- Universität Bremen, Forschungsgruppe Mensch-Technik-Interaktion
- Universität St. Gallen, Human-Computer Interaction
Cluster of Excellence
Cluster of Excellence - "Internet of Production"
Funding: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy – EXC-2023 Internet of Production.
In its role as a worldwide socio-technical network, the internet has revolutionised the availability of data and knowledge. The concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) transfers this idea to the physical world. The application of IoT within the context of production is not yet feasible as production technology is determined by significantly more parameters on the one hand, but less available data than other domains on the other hand. While large amounts of data are available in state-of-the-art production technology, these data are neither easily accessible, interpretable nor connected in a way that would all the generation of knowledge from them. The vision of the Internet of Production (IoP) is to enable a new level of cross-domain collaboration by providing semantically adequate and contextual data from production, development and usage in real-time and with adapted granularity.
The cluster of excellence "Internet of Production" at RWTH Aachen University was granted funding under the Excellence Strategy, and initiative by federal and state governments which aims at promoting outstanding research in Germany.
Duration: 2019-2025
KIPeriOP
Funding: The German Federal Ministry of Health (BMG)
The aim of KIPeriOP is to map both established medical guidelines and the expert knowledge condensed therein, as well as innovative data-supported methods and AI-based models in CDS tools in order to provide the best possible support for clinical users in their decision-making. Software solutions are developed and evaluated taking into account performance, user-friendliness and data protection as well as ethical and economic dimensions.
Overall, the aim is to improve patient-centered health care and strengthen the quality and cost-effectiveness of German healthcare.
Partners:
- Universitätsklinikum Würzburg
- Fraunhofer MEVIS
- Börm Bruckmeier Verlag
- Fakultät für Sport- und Gesundheitswissenschaften der Technische Universität München – TÜV Süd
- Deutsche Gesellschaft für Kardiologie – Herz- und Kreislaufforschung e.V. (DGK)
- Deutsche Gesellschaft für Anästhesiologie & Intensivmedizin (DGAI)
- Deutsche Gesellschaft für Chirurgie (DGCh)
AI in dermatology
In an ongoing project, together with the chair Individual and Technology, we are researching the use of algorithms for skin cancer screening in dermatology. Early detection of skin cancer is important. The implementation of skin cancer screenings is firmly anchored in the everyday practice of dermatology. In the future, algorithm-based systems could support dermatologists in this important routine task. A study is currently taking place on this very topic, in which we invite dermatologists to participate.
Previous Projects
SIENNA
SIENNA: Technology, Ethics and Human Rights
Human genomics, human enhancement, artificial intelligence and robotics offer benefits for both individuals and society. But these technologies also challenge our notions of what is ethical. SIENNA - Stakeholder-informed ethics for new technologies with high socio-economic and human rights impact - will provide frameworks to help develop research ethics protocols, professional ethics codes and better legal frameworks.
The SIENNA project has received funding under the European Union's H2020 research and innovation programme.