What it means to be human in the age of AI: The Challenge of Relegation in Robotics & Learning

In the workshop we will explore how engineers imagine self-adaptive decision making robots; how hospitals and schools imagine learning with gen-AI; and how AI-native 6G networks are designed to minimize the risks of privacy and surveillance. 

The workshop will consist first of a talk by Dr. Galit Wellner about her concept of ‘relegation’ in relation to GenAI and her work on the ethical aspects of designing next gen cellular networks known as 6G in the Horizon project: ENSURE-6G: Advancing Robust, Secure and Privacy-Preserving solutions for 6G. Empowering 6G Innovation Through Autonomous Security, Privacy Solutions, and Multidisciplinary Expertise (https://ensure-6g.eu/). 

From Denmark Cathrine Hasse and her team will share her experience of working with engineers creating self-adaptive decision making robots in the Horizon project RoboSAPIENS: https://robosapiens-eu.tech/robots-in-the-wild/

Maja Hojer Bruun will share her experiences working with engineers and algorithmic expertise in the project: Automated Expertise? Artificial Intelligence and algorithmic systems as inter- professional work practices (2023-2027, Independent Research Fund Denmark)

Other discussion partners with experiences in studies of algorithms, engineering, time and postphenomenology include philosopher of technology Søren Riis, Roskilde University and philosopher and techno-anthropologist Lars Botin, Aalborg University – and possibly the postphenomenological philosopher Robert Rosenberger, Georgia Institute of Technology (via Teams) as well as Marco Rozendaal, Delft University of Technology. 

All are welcome. 

Program

13.00-13.15 Welcome and round of presentations

13.15-14.00 Talk on ‘relegation’ by Dr. Galit Wellner, followed by Q/A

Title: What it means to be human in the age of AI: The Challenge of Relegation in Robotics & Learning

Abstract: As AI systems are attempting to predict our next move, and even channel our ways of thinking, automated decision making becomes more problematic than originally thought of in the context of fairness, accountability and transparency (FAccT). It is an ethico-political challenge that is pressing and demanding new design paradigms.

14.00-14.10 Break

14.10 – 15.30 Workshop on experiences working ethically with engineers Presentations by Cathrine Hasse and her team, Maja Hojer Bruun and other discussion partners.

15.00- 16.00 Q/A – and wrap-up and future collaborations. 

Bio: Galit Wellner, PhD., is an Senior Lecturer at Holon Institute of Technology (HIT) and an adjunct professor at Tel Aviv University. Wellner studies digital technologies and their inter-relations with humans. She is an active member of the Postphenomenology Community. She is the author of A Postphenomenological Inquiry of Cellphones: Genealogies, Meanings and Becoming (Lexington Books, 2015) and translated Don Ihde’s Postphenomenology and Technoscience to Hebrew (Resling 2016). She has co-edited Postphenomenology and Media: Essays on Human–Media–World Relations(Lexington Books, 2017), The Philosophy of Imagination: Technology, Art, Ethics (Bloomsbury, 2024) and Postphenomenology and Feminist Theory (Bloomsbury 2026). Her research on AI led to her appointment as the academic advisor of the AI Regulation Forum of the Israeli Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology and a PI at ENSURE-6G, a Horizon project on the privacy and safety of 6G wireless networks.