Irrationality and the Age of AI

The AI revolution has accelerated in recent years, propelled by the widespread use of large language models (LLMs). Today, AI systems are not only transforming technical environments but also shaping our thoughts, emotions, and everyday linguistic practices. Increasingly, AI research and industry are shifting their attention from rational problem-solving toward aspects of human life once considered the last bastions of humanity. We can contrast this approach to AI as a simulation of ‘rationality’ with the expansion of applications into the realm of the expression of emotions and other aspects of human life often seen as ‘irrational’. 

Our conference will explore the role of affective computing, emotionally laden human-machine interaction, conversational AI models, reinforcement algorithms, and recommender systems in the wake of the LLM revolution. In this light, our speakers will address a paradox of technological progress: the deeper AI mirrors the structural layers of the human mind through interdisciplinary breakthroughs, the more actually existing human irrationality becomes visible as social and political collateral damage. Simulating this irrationality, in turn, provides AI with new behavioral data, generating a non-rational feedback loop alongside the rational one—bringing both novel opportunities and risks.

These developments have profound normative consequences for social, political, and ethical thought and action. They raise urgent questions about the design of ethical AI that goes beyond regulatory compliance. Addressing these questions requires us to account for the transcultural differences that shape AI as a sociotechnological phenomenon. To this end, the conference will convene interdisciplinary expertise, industry perspectives, practical approaches, and artistic reflections on AI politics, ethics and philosophy.

Keynotes:

• May 18, 4pm: Emergent Emotions. The Future of Human-AI-Relationships by Prof. Eva Weber-Guskar (Bochum).
• May 19, 4pm: Consciousness, Love, and the Fantasy of AI by Prof. Alva Noë (Berkeley).

You can find more information and the full schedule on our website.