Salzburg, August 1, 2024 (KAP) This year’s “Audience Award” of the Salzburg University Weeks goes to the Freiburg theologian Hannah Ringel. The first prize for young scientists, worth 1,000 euros, was awarded on Thursday afternoon in Salzburg. After the “Theological Prize,” it is the second award to be given as part of the University Weeks. While the “Theological Prize” honors a lifetime achievement, the “Audience Award” is intended as a sponsorship prize for young scientists born in 1989 and later.
A jury of experts had selected three anonymous presentations from the submissions in advance. The audience then had the opportunity to evaluate the presentations according to their academic quality, originality of content and communicative transfer performance. The second prize, worth 500 euros, went to the Graz teacher and AI expert Dominik Freinhofer; the third prize, worth 300 euros, went to the Salzburg theologian Andrea Maria Schmuck.
In her winning presentation entitled “The Imitation Game,” Ringel showed how the relationship between man and machine is becoming a question of trust in the age of artificial intelligence. One indication of the importance of trust in this relationship is the European Union, which spoke of a regulation for “trustworthy AI” in connection with the recently passed “Artificial Intelligence Act.”
Ringel: “Trust is becoming a shaping factor in the human-machine relationship and in particular in the imitation relationship, in which humans are both the originators of the imitation and themselves the subject of imitation.” As users, who are also people who are used to living in relationships of trust, we are also challenged to “want to trust” in our relationship with machines and AI. However, AI will only be trustworthy if its functionality and its limitations or regulation are transparent, says Ringel.
The presentation by second-place winner Dominik Freinhofer was also dedicated to the same topic: In his presentation “Trust 4.0”, Freinhofer used the susceptibility to errors of current AI and language systems such as ChatGPT to show that they not only weaken trust through incorrect information or deliberately generated “fake news”, but also put the teacher-student relationship to a tough test (of trust) in everyday school life. In view of this, Freinhofer advocated “basic AI training for all citizens”, starting in school, as well as ethical training for developers of AI systems.
Andrea Maria Schmuck’s lecture was dedicated to the sensitive field of Jewish-Christian dialogue and the importance of trust in this area. Based on the sensational case of the forced baptism of the Jewish child Edgardo Mortara in the 19th century and the behavior of the Pope (this case was recently discussed again publicly in the wake of a film adaptation of the material), Schmuck showed how much the history of the mission to the Jews in the church and the substitution of the people of Israel in theology still burdens the Jewish-Christian relationship today – and how fragile the trust that has grown since then is. It is important that the rejection of any form of mission to the Jews today “does not remain mere lip service” and that a correction in church law with regard to emergency baptisms should be considered, said Schmuck.
Biographical notes
Hannah Ringel was born in 1995. She studied theology at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg until 2017. She has been doing her doctorate there since 2018. She has worked in Catholic adult education in the Diocese of Limburg, among other things, and also in Limburg as a speaker for the project management “Hearing those affected – preventing abuse. Consequences from the MHG study”. Since 2021 she has been working as a consultant for business transformation at BridgingIT GmbH Mannheim.
Dominik Freinhofer was born in 1996 in the Mostviertel region of Lower Austria. He studied “Global Sales and Marketing” at the Steyr University of Applied Sciences. He then studied English and History at the University of Graz. He is currently teaching at the Schloss Stein technical college, conducting research at the University of Graz on the subject of “Ethics and Artificial Intelligence” and is a lecturer in adult education on the subject of artificial intelligence.
Theologian Andrea Maria Schmuck was born in Bad Reichenhall in 1990. She studied German and Catholic religion for teaching as well as Catholic theology in Salzburg. It was there that she completed her dissertation “Faith space dialogue. On the epistemology of Jewish-Christian dialogue”. Since January she has been working in the Archbishop’s Ordinariate in Munich, and is also a senior scientist in the “Theology as Research on Hope” project at the Universities of Erfurt and Salzburg.
This year’s university weeks have the general theme “Fragile trust. About a precious resource”. Speakers include the climate researcher Helga Kromp-Kolb (Vienna), the Protestant theologian Thorsten Dietz (Marburg/Zurich), the philosopher Martin Hartmann (Lucerne), the peace researcher Martina Fischer (Berlin), the political scientist Kathrin Stainer-Hämmerle (Villach), and the Jesuit Andreas R. Batlogg (Munich). The preacher at the spiritual supporting program of the university weeks this year is the Rector of Anima in Rome, Michael Max. The keynote speech at the end of the university week on August 4th will be given by the sociologist Jutta Allmendinger. (Info: www.salzburger-hochschulwochen.at)
