Online-Seminar plus in-person engagement in a Presentation and Discussion Series
Winter Semester 2025–26
AI has tremendous potential to transform business and society by processing data in ways that once required human thought. However, understanding AI’s potential requires exploring its unique relationship with language and meaning, rather than viewing it as a human-like agent.
For humans, data exists within a rich experiential framework—a horizon that encompasses understanding, empathy, expectation, and imagination, giving language use its meaning. This raises fundamental questions: Can statistical computations replace these experiential dimensions? What forms of meaning can they generate? How might AI affect human cognition, emotions, and behavior, and what does this mean for society? These questions tie into major philosophical inquiries of the last millennia.
The seminar will establish a conceptual foundation by examining key terms, including digital, data, text, information, model, digitization, and computation—investigating how these relate to seemingly contrasting concepts such as interpretation, understanding, emotional experience, and other dimensions of lived experience. We will analyze the conceptual, scientific, economic, and societal developments that underpin digital technology and AI systems, while exploring AI’s impact on work structures, social organization, and the ethical challenges that emerge from its implementation.
The seminar is online, apart from one in-person meeting. The in-class presentations will be held in front of the other students, and students will receive feedback. The public presentations will be part of a public presentation and discussion series that includes of Europe’s largest software company, SAP, and others at the forefront of business AI.
The seminar is combined with the SAP/TUM Lecture Series.