Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights

Working group of the Austrian Research Foundation

Description of the working group

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become omnipresent and significantly influences the state, society and individuals. It is essential for coping with the pandemic. It changes the healthcare sector and individual healthcare. It is indispensable for traffic control and for partially regulating economics, such as through labour market administration or job recruitment. It is used for combating crime and in many other areas of our lives, even for steering individual behaviour. The resulting opportunities are enormous as are the threats and risks: The use of AI interferes with legally protected rights protected by national and European constitutional law as well as international human rights, first and foremost, the right to privacy. It is still unclear whether the potential threat just concerns certain human rights or whether it, more fundamentally, concerns the common core of all human rights, namely a human person’s autonomy. This poses the question of whether and how AI is regulated or should be regulated, i.e. which governance approaches or opportunities are possible as well as the limits of regulation.

The AI and Human Rights working group wants to address these problems. It is an interdisciplinary research group focussing on law. Its research should contribute to more legal certainty in an adequate governance framework for this topic, a governance framework taking account of both the opportunities and the threats and risks of Artificial Intelligence.

Symposia

AI – Human Rights Fundamentals and Limitations

16 November 2023

The first symposium addresses fundamentals of human rights and the limitations of AI development and AI application. The topics covered range from socio-technological foundations, the EUs specific regulation approach, to the (missing) impact of single fundamental and human rights. In choosing the speakers, we paid special attention to including young scholars. With the invitation of Rostam J. Neuwirth we could furthermore win an international expert on AI regulation for the symposium.

Program

Members of the working group

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Iris Eisenberger

Chair of the Working Group, Professor of Innovation and Public Law, University of Vienna

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Reinhard Klaushofer

Deputy Chair of the Working Group, Professor of Public Law and Head of the Austrian Human Rights Institute, University of Salzburg

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Erika de Wet

Professor of International Law, University of Graz

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Forgó

Professor of IT and IP Law, University of Vienna

Dipl.-Ing. Annemarie Hofer

Chair of the Young Section of the working group, PhD student in Interdisciplinary Legal Studies Environment and Bio-Resources Management, University of Vienna

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Andreas Holzinger

Professor of Digital Transformation in Smart Farm and Forest Operations, BOKU – University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Matthias Kettemann

Professor of Innovation, Theory and Philosophy of Law, University of Innsbruck

Dr. Sebastian Krempelmeier

Post-Doc, Public Law, University of Salzburg

Univ.-Prof. (SFU) Dr. Konrad Lachmayer

Professor of Public Law, European Law and Fundamentals of Law, Sigmund Freud Private University Vienna

Mag. Paola Lopez

Uni:Docs Fellow at the Department of Legal Philosophy, Mathematics, University of Vienna

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Martina Mara

Professor of Robopsychology, Johannes Kepler University Linz