With the start of the full grant, several new people have joined EIS:
Veronika Lazar is a PhD student in Industrial and Organizational Psychology and graduated in IO Psychology at Saarland University. She is interested in the interdisciplinary field of psychology and computer science. Her research interests include human-AI interaction, explainability of artificial intelligence and effects of explainability approaches. She focuses on trust in AI and reactions to algorithm-based decision making.
Sara Mann holds a master’s degree in Philosophy and Political Science (M.A.). Her master’s thesis dealt with the opportunities and risks connected to the anthropomorphisation of social robots, particularly those concerning similarities to philosophical conceptions of friendship. In EIS, she is working towards her PhD in philosophy. Her research interests concern the relationship between explanations and understanding, specifically the role of testimony, the social dimension of explanation, and the conditions for assessing an AI system’s trustworthiness.
Dr. Astrid Schomäcker is a postdoctoral researcher in theoretical philosophy and the project coordinator at EIS. Her background is in philosophy of mind with some additional training in the cognitive sciences. She wrote a dissertation on conceptual change and a potential explanation for phenomenal consciousness. At EIS, her work focuses on the comparison between human and machine bias and on the role of conceptual developments for explanations.
Additionally, Michael Wilhelm will support us as the new student assistant at EIS. He is currently completing his studies and plans to write a dissertation about Humeanism, a theory of practical rationality. He will assist us in maintaining the website and administrative matters.