A great success for the Austrian digital-humanism community: the two books Introduction to Digital Humanism (for which I co-authored a chapter) and Perspectives on Digital Humanism have been accessed over one million times in total. You can find more information in this article.
On 23 Oct 2024, ORF Upper Austria reported in its program Bundesland heute (at minute 14:58) on a congress about AI in hospitals that took place at the Design Center in Linz on the same day.
The 22nd Congress of the Upper Austrian Hospitals Affiliated with Religious Orders (22. internationaler Kongress der oö. Ordensspitäler) was opened by Mother Superior (Generaloberin) Sr. M. Barbara Lehner (Elisabethinen Linz–Wien), Episcopal Vicar (Bischofsvikar) Dr. Adi Trawöger, and Deputy Governor (Landeshauptmann-Stellvertreterin) Mag. Christine Haberlander. The location was packed with more than 500 participants (excluding online participants), showing the great interest of health-care practitioners in AI topics.
The program included a presentation by myself about current applications of machine learning in oncology and intensive-care medicine.
Revolutionizing Healthcare through Artificial Intelligence: Join the Future at AI Health Vienna 2024!
AI Health Vienna 2024 will take place on 25 and 26 November 2024 in the Van Swieten Hall (Van-Swieten-Gasse 1a, 1090 Wien) at Medical University Vienna. AI Health Vienna is organized by Oliver Kimberger, Maria Kletečka-Pulker, and myself.
On a recent Euronews Witness broadcast (and article) by Julian Gomez, my work on AI solutions, for example for optimizing intensive care units, was highlighted at minute 6:34. In the segment, I discuss the role of recent developments in artificial intelligence, emphasizing how modern AI systems, with their generative capabilities, are now more integrated into everyday technologies like phones and computers. I stress the importance of ensuring these systems function reliably to solve the problems they are designed for. Throughout history, humanity has continually developed tools to make life easier, and AI represents the next frontier in that tradition – especially when applied to safety critical settings.
I am pleased to serve on the expert panel advising the Public Employment Service (AMS) in Austria on digital future projects for the job market. The first meeting of the panel took place on 3 September, where we discussed key strategies and innovative approaches to address the evolving demands of the labor market in a digital age. I look forward to contributing to the panel’s important work in shaping the future of employment in Austria.
ORF (Austrian Broadcasting Corporation) Topos published the article Eigene Daten als „Achillesferse“ der KI (Own Data as the “Achilles Heel” of AI) by Mona Harfmann including comments by my colleagues Ivona Brandic and Radu Grosu at the Department for Informatics (Computer Science), TU Wien, and myself.
The article also includes an excellent introductory video about large language models such as ChatGPT.
The Department of Informatics (Computer Science) at TU Wien published an article about our FFG research project RELY. We develop and test reinforcement-learning algorithms for the optimal control of pump turbines. Pump turbines are crucial parts of our power grid, since they generate electricity (to meet energy demands) or store energy (when there is an oversupply). They also play a role in regulating the power grid. Reinforcement learning makes it possible to shape the landscape of future energy systems, making them more efficient and resilient while transitioning to renewable energies.
Felix Wagner, one of my MSc students, did a great job in developing a reinforcement-learning system to control cryogenic sensors in the search for dark matter. The system is in use at the CRESST experiment in the Gran Sasso deep underground laboratory in Italy. TU Wien published the article The World’s Most Sensitive Experiment is Controled by AI on the university home page.
The Vienna Arbitration Days 2024 are Austria’s leading arbitration conference and bring together the international dispute resolution community. This year, they took place from 7 to 8 June 2024 at the beautiful Palais Niederösterreich in the center of Vienna.
In the panel discussion Out of the Dark – into the Digital World, I was happy to discuss the impact of artificial intelligence and large language models in particular on law and arbitration.
The video accompanying our paper Adapting to the “Open World”: the Utility of Hybrid Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning and Symbolic Planning at the 2024 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2024) is available now. It is also available here.
On 11 May 2024, Kronen-Zeitung, Austria’s largest newspaper, published an article by Eva Greil-Schähs about oncology and the use of artificial intelligence to help patients. The article includes comments by the president of the Austrian Society for Hematology and Medical Oncology (ÖGHO), Prim. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Ewald Pöll, and my comments on early prediction, finding optimal personalized therapies, and future developments.
Our FFG research project RELY (Reliable Reinforcement Learning for Sustainable Energy Systems) has been nominated for the Austrian National Price in Technology 2024 (Staatspreis Technologie 2024) by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation, and Technology in the first category AI for Green together with two other projects or prototypes.
The Austrian Library Network (österreichische Bibliothekenverbund und Service GmbH, OBV) held its annual convention at the University for Continuing Education Krems on 24 April 2024. I was invited to give the keynote on Large Language Models: Functioning and Application Perspectives and would like to thank the organizers for their invitation and the participants for their well thought out questions.
The Spring Symposium (Frühjahrstagung) 2024 of the Austrian Society for Hematology and Medical Oncology (ÖGHO) and the Arbeitsgemeinschaft hämatologischer und onkologischer Pflegepersonen in Österreich took place from 4 to 6 April 2024 at the Hofburg in Vienna. I gave a presentation and took part in the following panel discussion in the presidential session on 4 April 2024.
The Legal 500 GC Summit Austria 2024 took place at the Hotel Bristol, Vienna, on 14 March 2024. The GC Summit Austria invited the most esteemed in-house counsels from the country’s most prolific companies as well as leading practitioners to discuss their changing roles as in-house leaders and the challenges, issues, and opportunities they are set to face in 2024 and beyond.
I was happy to discuss AI, the new AI Act, and the changing role of legal departments in a panel discussion organized by Andreas Schütz, Taylor Wessing Vienna.
In its March 2024 edition, Bulletin, the magazine for TU Wien alumni, features a two-page article about my work on reinforcement learning and calculating optimal medical treatments in the case of sepsis.
I was invited to give a talk on how large language models such as ChatGPT and Gemini work at the symposium Automization of Work – Chances and Risks of Usage of Artificial Intelligence in Companies (Automatisierung der Arbeit – Chancen und Risiken des Einsatzes Künstlicher Intelligenz im Betrieb) at the Vienna University of Economics and Business on 29 Feb 2024.
Congratulations to my PhD student Laurenz Ruzicka! He won the Best Poster Award at the 17th International Conference on Bio-inspired Systems and Signal Processing (BIOSIGNALS 2024) for his paper Centrality of the Fingerprint Core Location.
I am already getting messages asking about my course on reinforcement learning in summer. Thanks for your interest; I will teach it as usual in the summer semester. Since LLM such as ChatGPT and Gemini rely on reinforcement learning in their last and crucial training step, the importance of reinforcement learning is greater than ever. The course has been entered in TISS as 194.163 and 101.789 and will be visible to students later on.
APA (Austria Presse Agentur, the leading Austrian news and press agency) published a bunch of articles on health and AI in its science track on 1 Feb 2024.
The first article, Healthy with AI? („Gesund mit KI?“), by Stefan Thaler (APA Science) is an overview and mentions CAIML and myself towards the beginning.
Another article, How AI Improves Medical Diagnoses and Therapies („Wie KI die medizinische Diagnose und Therapie verbessert“), by Jochen Stadler goes into more depth and includes my comments on recent developments at the beginning.
A third article, What Has Already Become Daily Routine in Many Labs and Clinics („Was in vielen Labors und Kliniken schon Alltag ist“), also by Jochen Stadler, includes a detailed description of my work in reinforcement learning and the development of a decision-support system for medication against sepsis, the leading cause of death in intensive-care units.
On 31 Jan 2024 I gave a talk on Reinforcement Learning and its Application in Medicine and Large Language Models as part of OFAI’s 2023 Fall Lecture Series. OFAI is the Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence and has been active in AI research for more than 35 years.
The Austrian Medical Association (österreichische Ärztekammer) dedicated the first track of its fourteenth annual symposium to AI in medicine and had invited me to give a talk about AI in intensive care. I would like to thank the about three dozen presidents and vice-presidents of Austrian and German federal and state medical associations for the inspiring discussions and insights.
On 20 December 2023, Ö1 sent the continuation of the reporting by Maria Harmer from AI Health Vienna 2023, this time in their series Radiodoktor – das Ö1 Gesundheitsmagazin. You can find the 15-minute segment here.
Doktor Digital – Einsatzmöglichkeiten Künstlicher Intelligenz in der Medizin
20. Dezember 2023, 16:40
Die Ideen zum Einsatz Künstlicher Intelligenz in der Medizin sind vielfältig: Computerbasierte Methoden und Maschinelles Lernen sollen Ärztinnen und Ärzte etwa dabei unterstützen, Röntgenbefunde noch treffsicherer zu machen. Als App für das Smartphone sollen sie dazu beitragen, bösartige Veränderungen von Muttermalen früher zu erkennen und so die Entstehung von Hautkrebs verhindern. Aber auch im Bereich des Krankenhausmanagements, etwa bei der Bettenbelegung oder der OP-Planung, sollen KI-Anwendung zukünftig eine wichtige Rolle spielen. Maria Harmer beschäftigt sich in dieser Ausgabe des Ö1-Gesundheitsmagazins mit vielversprechenden Einsatzmöglichkeiten Künstlicher Intelligenz in der Medizin, adressiert aber auch offene Fragen rund um diese Anwendung wie Datensicherheit oder rechtliche Leitlinien.
Moderation und Redaktion: Marlene Nowotny
On 28 November 2023, Ö1 sent a 30-minute radio report by Maria Harmer in their series Journal Panorama about our congress AI Health Vienna 2023.
Quoting from Ö1 Journal Panorama:
Algorithmus statt Arzt? Künstliche Intelligenz in der Medizin
Zusammenfassung eines hochkarätig besetzten zweitägigen Symposiums in Wien
28. November 2023, 18:25
Das Erkennen bösartiger Hautveränderungen, die Befundung eines Röntgenbildes, aber auch die Logistik für die Belegung der Krankenbetten und das Schreiben von Arztbriefen: Die Palette der Einsatzmöglichkeiten künstlicher Intelligenz auch im Gesundheitsbereich ist vielfältig, das Potential groß. In einigen Bereichen wird KI bereits angewandt, unzählige weitere Einsatzoptionen im Behandlungszimmer, im OP und in der Intensivmedizin sowie in der Verwaltung werden aktuell erforscht und stetig weiterentwickelt.
Die Chancen und das Potential scheinen unendlich. Doch auch die Liste der offenen Fragen ist lang: Was heißt das für die Patient:innen? Wie sicher sind ihre persönlichen Gesundheitsdaten? Wer haftet bei Schäden, die auf die künstliche Intelligenz zurückzuführen sind? Und was heißt das für Ärztinnen und Ärzte? Werden sie in Zukunft durch nimmer-müde fehlerfreie Maschinen ersetzt, oder ist KI eine sinnvolle Ergänzung und lässt mehr Zeit für andere Aufgabenbereiche?
I was invited to give a talk about machine learning in the context of legal questions regarding applications in medicine in the seminar series on identity and medicine at the Medical University of Vienna.
Revolutionizing health care through artificial intelligence: join the future at AI Health Vienna 2023! You can find the program here and here.
Thanks to the more than 100 participants and their interest in the keynote, the four blocks of talks (introduction and showcases, big data, science talks, and legals issue and road blocks), the public lecture, and the panel discussion.
We also appreciate the video messages by
(in alphabetical order).
Photo credit: MedUni Wien / Marko Kovic.
Thanks to the editors for their initiative!
kma Online has published the article Wie Blutvergiftungen mit künstlicher Intelligenz geheilt werden könnten about our work on reinforcement learning for sepsis treatments. kma is short for Klinik Management aktuell and the leading magazine for decision-makers in clinics in the D-A-CH area. It publishes news about clinic management, health care, health-care policy, and medical technology.
We have been nominated for the futurezone Award 2023 in the category Health Tech, thus being among the three finalists.
I was happy to give the keynote on Tuesday at the 30th Austrian Fundraising Congress, talking about the past, present, and future of artificial intelligence.
News, Austria’s largest weekly news magazine, published a 6-page article about artificial intelligence in medicine titled Doktor Digital, featuring our work on reinforcement learning for treating sepsis in intensive-care units.
On Friday, 4 October 2023, I took part in a panel discussion about the state of AI research with
At the Science Talk on 25 September 2023, I discussed the topic AI – What Can We Still Trust? with
The invitation can be found here. Some photos are available here.
The Department of Informatics (Computer Science) at TU Wien is ranked #1 in Austria, #4 in the D-A-CH area, #23 in Europe, and #74 worldwide according to the QS University Ranking 2022. I am happy and proud to join the department starting in August, contributing to machine-learning research and focusing on TUW CAIML (Center for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning).
I comment on the paper Large Language Models Encode Clinical Knowledge (by Google Research, the National Library of Medicine, and DeepMind) in Ö1 Wissen aktuell (science radio program by the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation ORF) on Friday, 14 July 2023. An accompanying article was published online at science.orf.at on Thursday, 13 July 2023.
Der Standard, one of Austria’s leading newspapers, published a one-page article about my work in reinforcement learning and sepsis treatment on page 11.
The announcement, program, and all details of the First ASAI/CAIML National Summer School in Artificial Intelligence can be found here.
A long two-part interview (in German) about our work on reinforcement learning in intensive-care units and about ethical questions was published by medinlive, the medical information and news website of the Viennese medical association.
Mayrs Magazin, the science show by ORF (Austrian Broadcasting Corporation) on Fridays at 18:30, brought a segment on generative AI and the current research race with comments by myself on Friday, 16 June 2023.
Generative AI will be the most significant disruption of our lifetimes. It is our obligation as scientists to guide the application and further development of this technology in such a way that it benefits us all.
We are pleased to announce that we have just launched the Became AI platform in collaboration with CAIML at TU Wien and its newly established special interest group (SIG) Generative AI. One of its initiatives is the Became AI Forge, which provides a guided three-months program offering hands-on mentorship and sponsored resources such as API access and cloud GPUs for exploring generative AI.
Besides that, there will be the Became AI Lab bridging science and businesses, where you will be able to apply your learnings from the Became AI Forge to real-world projects with real-world data.
Our big vision is to build an initiative that has an impact beyond individual projects. We want to drive the adoption of generative AI in Austria and also create our own large language model (LLM) in order to become independent from big-tech companies.
As TU Wien is going to offer classes on generative AI starting this fall, there will be the option to have your practical work recognized there.
If you want to join our first batch of the Became AI Forge, please register on our website https://became.ai/ till 15 June 2023 at 23:59. If you have any further questions, please email us at mailto:tuwien@became.ai.
In a panel discussion moderated by Eva Stanzl, Olga Grjasnowa, Georg Psota, and myself discussed Generative AI, ChatGPT, and their ramifications for our future.
Articles:
We made the headline of Kurier, one of Austria’s leading newspapers, on 5 June 2023: Artificial Intelligence as Life-Saver.
The article on page 19, also available at Future Zone, discusses how we worked on reinforcement learning to calculate optimal treatments.
The TUW Live event on Future Technologies featured a 20-minute interview about ChatGPT (Large Language Models). You can find the recap here.
A press release by TU Wien features our collaboration with Medical University Vienna. We worked on reinforcement learning to learn optimal sepsis treatments in intensive care. See my publications here and here, also available from my list of publications ([84, 85]).
My latest research project Reliable Reinforcement Learning for Sustainable Energy Systems (RELY), funded by FFG’s AI for Green initiative, will start in September 2023.
The article “AI Engineer: Der Job des KI-Ingenieurs” with quotes by myself about the roles of AI engineers was published by the well-known Austrian monthly magazine Trend.
The article “Warum ChatGPT so schnell kein Job-Killer ist” with quotes by myself was published by well-known Austrian newspaper Kurier and online magazine Future Zone.
Puls4, one of Austria’s leading private TV stations, focuses on ChatGPT in Austria’s most popular breakfast TV show Café Puls (5:30–12:00) from Monday, 6 March, to Friday, 10 March 2023, including some statements by myself about how ChatGPT works and possible ramifications.
News, Austria’s largest weekly news magazine, chose artificial intelligence as the cover story of its 3 March 2023 issue (no. 9/2023).
For this issue, I was interviewed about ChatGPT. You can find the interview on page 48.
For more information, see here.
I am happy to congratulate my former PhD students Amirreza Khodadadian and Leila Taghizadeh on their successes in the latest FWF (Austrian Science Fund) founding round. In 2023, both will head their first research projects as PIs. Amir’s project is called Using Single Atom Catalysts as Nanozymes in Field-Effect Transistor Sensors, and Leila’s is called Computational Uncertainty Quantification in Nanotechnology.
I am happy to announce that my course on reinforcement learning has been accepted as an AIDA course, being open to all AIDA students online. Registration will start in February 2023, and the course will start beginning of March 2023.
Course
homepage at AIDA
Course
homepage at TU Wien (TISS)
Der Falter, an Austrian weekly newspaper, published an article by Tessa Szyszkowitz about deepfakes (issue 2022/28 dated 12 July 2022).
The opening of the TUW Center for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (CAIML) took place on Thursday, Dec 2, 2021 with a keynote by Turing Award winner Leslie Valiant and a panel discussion with Gerhard Friedrich, James Larus, Helga, Nowotny, and Paul Timmers. The announcement and details can be found here. Slides, photos, and the video can be found here. The CAIML website is caiml.org.
TUW is founding member of AIDA (International Artificial Intelligence Doctoral Academy). Thomas Eiter is the Representative of TU Wien at AIDA.
The 15th ÖGOR Workshop Mathematische Ökonomie und Optimierung in der Energiewirtschaft will take place on September 23 and 24, 2021 at Webster Vienna Private University. You can find the announcement here. Focus areas are optimization, statistical learning, machine learning, AI, open data and open-source tools, and the effects of the corona pandemic on energy modeling.
The MSCA COFUND doctoral program Engineering for Life Sciences (ENROL) with a total volume of 3.25 M€, cofunded by the European Commission, will start in October 2021 and run till September 2026. You can apply for a PhD position here.
A double-degree program between the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia and TU Wien has been signed. It allows selected students to obtain a double PhD degree in applied mathematics and/or information and communication technologies.
The Hannspeter Winter Prize is the annual prize for the best PhD thesis by a female student at TU Wien. Each of the eight departments may nominate at most one candidate, resulting in an interdisciplinary competition.
Dr. Leila Taghizadeh has been awarded the Hannspeter Winter Prize 2020 of TU Wien for fundamental research in applied mathematics. Press release by TU Wien.
Congratulations to Leila!
Since her PhD defense in October 2019, Leila is a postdoc in my group Machine Learning and Uncertainty Quantification at the Institute of Analysis and Scientific Computing at TU Wien. Her work focuses on mathematical modeling, analysis, and simulation of stochastic PDE systems with applications in biology, medicine, and physics. Currently she is also working on uncertainty quantification in epidemiological models (applied to COVID-19).
I was kindly asked to serve as a Distinguished International Member on the Academic Board of the PhD Program in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) at the Department of Engineering Enzo Ferrari of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia.
The lecture Reinforcement Learning (lecture with tutorial, 101.789 VU Reinforcement Learning, 4h, 6 ECTS) taught by Daniel Pasterk and myself, is now officially part of the curriculum for the MSc degree in Data Science in the module MLS/EX Machine Learning and Statistics – Extension.
MLTUW is a new initiative that promotes the use of advanced and reliable machine-learning methods in science and technology at TU Wien. Please see the MLTUW page for more information.
Gemeinsam mit Ronald Hochreiter (Webster University), Daniel Huppmann (IIASA), Gerold Petritsch (EVN, ÖGOR) und Leopold Sögner (IHS) organisiere ich den 15. ÖGOR Workshop über Mathematische Ökonomie und Optimierung in der Energiewirtschaft vom 25. bis 26.6.2020 an der Webster University Wien. Offizielle Ankündigung.
I am organizing the minisymposium on Optimization and Model-Free Learning at the SIAM Conference on Mathematics of Data Science (MDS20).
We will organize five workshops at the Erwin Schrödinger Institute (ESI) in Vienna within the thematic program Computational Uncertainty Quantification: Mathematical Foundations, Methodology and Data in spring 2020:
The homepage of the thematic program at ESI is here.
I was interviewed for an article in Austria Innovativ Spezial that appeared in March 2019.
I gave the faculty talk entitled Nanoscale Sensors for Biomolecule Detection and DNA/RNA Sequencing: Theory and Applications at the VICEM Diploma Thesis Award Ceremony.
Einladung als PDF-Datei, Link.
Podiumsdiskussion zum Thema Wie funktioniert Wissenschaft heute? Der Science Talk blickt “hinter die Kulissen” mit:
Danach Überreichung der Auszeichnung Wissenschaftsbuch des Jahres durch Dr. Reinhold Mitterlehner, Vizekanzler und Bundesminister für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Wirtschaft.
Datum: 20. Februar 2017
Beginn: 18:00
Ort: Aula der
Wissenschaften, Wollzeile 27a, 1010 Wien
Austrian national newspaper Der Standard wrote an article about my work: Forscher rechnen mit Nanotechnologie — Researchers Count on / Simulate Nanotechnology. (The German title contains a pun.)
From left to right: Gudmund Pammer, Amirreza Khodadadian, Caroline Geiersbach, Leila Taghizadeh, Benjamin Stadlbauer, Gerhard Tulzer, Clemens Heitzinger. (Not shown: Andreas Buttinger-Kreuzhuber, Gregor Mitscha-Eibl.)
TU Wien celebrated its 200th anniversary on November 6, 2015. To mark the occasion, the exhibition Wunderkammer 2015 was open to the public in TU Wien’s main building in November 2015. Its topic was What’s Next?, bringing together science, technology, and art and familiarizing the general public with new developments. About 100 submissions were received by the organizers of Wunderkammer 2015, and about 30 were selected by a jury of experts. My group presented an overview of our work.
In addition to actual nanowire gas sensors and posters, we showed this presentation (in German). Special thanks to Benjamin Stadlbauer for preparing the presentation with nice animations and many explanations.
The presentation can be viewed here as a movie file. You can view it full-screen by clicking on the “enlarge” button; the movie file is 1920×1080.
This article, Neue Wunderwelten, reports from the exhibition and mentions us. Further articles are here and here.
ORF, Austria’s largest TV station, reported about the opening of the exhibition. Visitors in front of our booth are shown here.
My comment (Gastkommentar) on the law amendment changing the organization of Austrian universities appeared in the Austrian newspaper Die Presse on 7 October 2015.
In May 2015, I was interviewed about my work at TU Wien and the topic of the START Prize: Mathematik für die Nanotechnologie.
In December 2013, I was interviewed about my work and the START Prize: Math researcher earns prestigious START Prize.