The first lecture of TeamID Lunch Lecture Series

by Matthias Klonner, Hande Özkayagan Prändl and Katarzyna Barud

The Department of Innovation and Digitalisation in Law has kicked off their TeamID Lunch Lecture Series on 13 June at 12:30 pm. The aim of the Lunch Lecture Series is to increase the exchange between the Department and its employees with researches both from other disciplines and from other law faculties in a convivial setting.

Our first guest lecturer for the TeamID Lunch Lecture Series was Dr. Stephanie Gross from the Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence (OFAI). Dr. Gross has been a post-doctoral researcher at the OFAI for over 10 years, and in the past has focused on the topic of natural language processing. As an excerpt from her research, she presented to our group the results of a recently completed project on the topic of "Bias In Language Models", with a focus on gender bias. In her presentation, she highlighted not only the difficulty of preventing bias of any kind but also some possible solutions to address it, by testing various well-known large language models (LLMs). Specifically, the presentation focused on the effects of training data on bias in corresponding LLMs.

Throughout her lecture, a lively discussion among our almost 30 participants took place, including professors and doctoral students, about the relationship between technical development and their regulation. Topics such as the responsibility of developers and companies, ethical guidelines and the impact of the new regulations at the EU level were among the topics of discussion. We look forward to future exchanges and collaboration between our Department and the OFAI.

The next edition of the TeamID Lunch Lecture Series also promises to be exciting and intriguing and will once again provide a platform for exchange on current and relevant topics in a comfortable setting among the researchers of the University of Vienna. The next Lunch Lecture is expected to take place in the winter semester. For the second lecture, we are hoping to welcome more people and will announce the topic in advance.