ABSTRACT. We investigate potential gender-based discrimination in a real-world insurance machine learning model designed to identify claims likely to “explode” in compensation costs. With the EU AI Act and Austrian legal frameworks requiring non-discriminatory algorithmic systems, ensuring fairness in insurance claim prediction models has become critically important. The research examines whether a Light Gradient Boosting Machine (LGBM) model used by an Austrian insurance company exhibits gender discriminatory behavior and explores methods to mitigate such bias. This study analyzed a dataset of 450,000 insurance claims provided by an Austrian insurance company. The baseline analysis revealed significant discrimination against female claimants compared to male claimants. While mitigation methods successfully improved fairness metrics, these improvements came at a cost to predictive performance.

ABSTRACT. The reduction of food waste is one of the major challenges of today for retailers and wholesalers. Large amounts of food are thrown away on the retail and wholesale level per year. Since globally available resources are limited, preventing food waste is a very important way to reduce the carbon footprint and even help protect the environment because the production of goods consumes both large amounts of energy and land. Preventing food waste is intertwined with the related problem of order generation. The generation of orders depends on accurate forecasts provided to the users. In this paper, we present a system description of a prototype that significantly improves forecasts to facilitate the reduction of food waste through the use of machine learning to provide a basis for subsequent order optimization. Our system has been developed in cooperation with Austrian retailers and wholesalers who provide both real-world data and valuable insights into the inner workings of Austrian grocers. We present an overview of the system and the technologies utilized to achieve our goals. In addition, we also discuss the constraints and ethical considerations encountered. Our evaluation shows that our system can help achieve the goals of reducing food waste while being very useful to our project partners and, therefore, workable in the real world.

ABSTRACT. Fairness is essential to ensure long-term satisfaction and engagement of employees, users, and clients---particularly in systems that rely on automated decisions such as scheduling. In this position paper, we argue that fairness in scheduling must be understood as a property over time: treating each scheduling decision in isolation---without considering how often agents have been favored or disadvantaged in the past---can lead to persistent unfairness. We propose a framework for fairness over time in repeated scheduling scenarios that captures individual utilities across a history of decisions and can be adapted to multiple applications and fairness concepts. We hope this framework will encourage further research and will serve as a foundation for both theoretical exploration and the development of practical scheduling systems that promote fairness over time.

ABSTRACT. Expanding electrification infrastructure demands route planning tools that optimize feasibility while respecting legal, environmental, and stakeholder constraints. We present a hybrid system for value-centric electrification planning that combines heuristic search with logic-based verification. A modified A* algorithm explores alternatives using expert-informed heuristics, while an Answer Set Programming (ASP)-based rule set evaluates stakeholder constraint compliance. This separation of planning and evaluation supports transparency and explainability. Expert feedback highlights the system’s value in early-stage decision support, and statistical analysis suggests that it consistently identifies technically feasible routes with reduced private land intrusion.

ABSTRACT. Real-world datasets often contain inconsistencies that challenge traditional case-based reasoning models. Building upon the result model, a well-established formal representation of case base reasoning in law, we propose a Bayesian reinterpretation that effectively addresses such inconsistencies.

Our Bayesian enhancement quantifies the reliability of precedents and encapsulates principled, explainable predictions even in the presence of conflict, representing a meaningful step forward in using these models to design AI agents.

ABSTRACT. With its digital strategy "Shaping Europe’s Digital Future", the EU is decisively pursuing the goal of building an innovative data economy. The central building blocks of this strategy are interoperable data spaces, which are intended to enable the sovereign and trustworthy exchange of data across application sectors and national borders. However, despite explicitly formulated regulatory principles, it remains unclear how these can be made tangible in concrete implementation. This paper offers a conceptual contribution to the design of data spaces by examining the diverse perspectives involved and the value conflicts that arise between them. Drawing on our experience as designers in an EU energy data space project, we use the notion of trustworthiness as an entry point to explore these tensions: How can systems be designed in ways that meet users’ expectations of trust, while also aligning with ethical, legal, economic, technical, and political demands? To ground our reflection, we complement it with empirical insights from a survey (n=24) and qualitative interviews with potential users. In our analysis, we follow basic principles of Green Technology and Digital Humanism. Rather than offering solutions, this paper aims to clarify the conceptual problem space and support critical reflection in future design and governance processes.

ABSTRACT. Supply chains are fundamental to the economic functioning of society, through the assembly and transport of essential goods such as food, clothes and medicine. Technological advancements have driven supply chains to become increasingly automated, to optimise for efficiency and cost, and to respond to disturbances. However, optimising for social concerns is less prevalent. For example, increasing consumer preferences towards purchasing goods whose production is more aligned with those consumers’ values (such as sustainability), requires values-management capabilities within supply chain software. Such capabilities include tracing, monitoring, and verifying values-alignment between end-consumers and stakeholders. In this paper, we advocate for adaptive values-alignment between end-consumers and stakeholders in cyber-physical supply chains. We motivate this by means of an example of a coffee supply chain, which in turn surfaces social and technical challenges to values-alignment. We then propose a distributed, locally adaptive values-alignment approach. We implement this approach within a software framework and quantitatively illustrate its impact in increasing alignment from two competing perspectives: supply chain stakeholders and end-consumers. We show that end-consumer bias performs better by reducing values-misalignment by up to 85%. We also find that the homogeneity of stakeholders' values is not correlated with an increase in values-alignment with end-consumers and that mixed values-alignment across the supply chain may be beneficial for supporting stakeholder engagement.

ABSTRACT. The article examines the evolution of the current technological paradigm, based on digital technologies, considering the interaction between civilian and military trajectories, with a focus on the US case. Building on an original political economy framework, the activities of corporations and the industrial and technology policies of the US government are examined. The evolution of digital technologies and the rise of major US corporations - Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft – is investigated, showing that their platform business model is characterised by monopoly power, management of Big Data and major capabilities of control, surveillance and targeting. A civilian trajectory – with large commercial markets and a novel reach in several areas of social activities - has dominated the rise of digital technologies. Its key characteristics, however, have become of major interest for military priorities. The analysis of recent US industrial and technology policies for the military shows that they have expanded the involvement of US digital corporations in arms and security programmes, developed large defense R&D projects in digital areas, and shaped a new convergence between civilian and military trajectories. The outcome we are facing is therefore the emergence of a digital-militaryindustrial complex - a major and problematic novelty in a digital age that had grown out of a civilian trajectory.

ABSTRACT. The last years have seen a surge of debates and research on the impact of digitalisation on democracy and state institutions. Interestingly, neither strand of debate has so far discussed the transformation of parliaments and parliamentary democracy in a digital world. In this paper, we will argue that we need a theory of parliament for the digital age and that discussions of so-cietal and democratic transformations cannot be conducted without refer-ence to specific institutions.

ABSTRACT. As digital systems become an integral part of modern organizations, ethical considerations must also be incorporated within the business process management domain. While this domain has traditionally focused on system-level goals, such as efficiency, security, and compliance, individual-level ethical aspects, such as human preferences, well-being, and dignity, remain largely unexplored. This paper introduces the concept of ethical-aware business processes, which are capable of integrating both system-level obligations and individual ethical values. Focusing on autonomous systems guided by a process model, we explore the challenges of designing, implementing, and monitoring processes that ensure respectful and responsible interactions with humans. We also outline key research directions to enable the management of ethical-aware business processes across their lifecycle.

ABSTRACT. This paper analyzes the European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act) through the prism of Digital Humanism, using the principles articulated by Erich Prem as a normative lens. These principles emphasize the co-evolution of technology and humanity, the responsibility of technology to protect people and the environment, its role in reinforcing democracy and society, the malleability of technological systems, and the fundamental differences between humans and machines. Our analysis finds that while the AI Act incorporates aspects of these principles, such as through its attention to fundamental rights, it only partially fulfils their broader vision. We argue that a deeper alignment with digital humanism would enhance the AI Act’s ability to guide the development and deployment of AI in a way that genuinely prioritizes humans and societal well-being.

ABSTRACT. The EU AI Act introduces the world’s first comprehensive legal framework for regulating artificial intelligence. Built on a risk-based approach, it aims to protect public safety and fundamental rights. While the Act is a significant step towards harmonised governance, its implementation raises several questions. These in-clude the complexity of risk classification, regulatory gaps in general-purpose AI (GPAI) oversight, the absence of harmonised technical standards and uncertain-ties regarding the translation of fundamental rights into technical design. This white paper explores how Value-Based Engineering (VBE), a methodology based on the IEEE 7000™ standard, can address these challenges by providing a struc-tured, context-sensitive and ethics-driven design process. It examines how VBE supports alignment with key EU AI Act obligations, including risk management, quality assurance, and fundamental rights impact assessments. Through its non-list approach to values, deep contextual analysis, structured elicitation of ethical value requirements (EVRs), and early stakeholder engagement, VBE helps bridge the gap between regulatory intent and technical implementation. The paper con-cludes that integrating VBE into AI system development not only supports com-pliance with evolving legal obligations, but also fosters trust, societal acceptance, and ethical robustness in high-risk AI.

ABSTRACT. We introduce the micro-degree "Artificial Intelligence and Society" developed by the University of Graz, a novel interdisciplinary program designed to bridge the gap between technical AI knowledge and its broader societal implications. Recognising the rapid permeation of AI into all aspects of life and the limitations of traditional educational systems in addressing this transformation, the target audience of the micro-degree is both students enrolled in traditional university degrees as well as the existing workforce. The 16 ECTS curriculum, spanning two semesters, covers the technical foundations of AI systems alongside their ethical, legal, economic, and educational impacts. It features a modular structure with basic knowledge lectures, hands-on application courses – including a mandatory technical AI course and electives in ethics, law, economics, and education –, and practicals where students implement AI-based solutions to real-world problems. Here, we describe the structure and content of the micro-degree, including the learning objectives of the individual degree modules. We also provide Open Educational Resources used for teaching the (mandatory) lecture and hands-on course on the technical foundations of artificial intelligence. This micro-degree represents a crucial step towards fostering digital humanism by enabling individuals to confidently understand, apply, and shape AI's role in society.

ABSTRACT. Digital technologies have revolutionized our society, and through the per-vasive use of computers and digital devices the management of individual and collective information has been changed forever. A radical change has been generated by the growth in the importance of data. They are no longer just artifacts for information, communication and analysis, but fundamental economic and relational resources. In this scenario, it is essential to protect individual rights, without compromising innovation and the progress of society. The following work discusses how the continuous collection and processing of massive personal data changed our society. This new condi-tion asks for a balance between the protection of individual privacy and the need to use data for providing services to citizens in a global context in-creasingly dependent on digitalization. The key role of data brokers is dis-cussed and a proposal for personal data protection is outlined.

ABSTRACT. Data-driven tools, such as digital self-tracking technologies, are increasingly embedded in everyday life. However, their impact is ambivalent, as previous research has shown that they can simultaneously empower and disempower individuals. In this paper, we adopt a perspective from digital humanism to unpack key empowerment tensions at the intrapersonal, interactional, and behavioral levels that shape the effects of digital self-tracking: self-connectedness vs. self-alienation, social embeddedness vs. normative pressure, and agency vs. technological control. We argue that realizing the empowering potential of digital self-tracking requires careful design, implementation, and use. To support this, we offer guiding questions for each level of empowerment to help shape digital self-tracking towards empowerment rather than disempowerment.

ABSTRACT. This position paper critically examines the European Union’s current policy discourse on the twinning of the green and digital transitions. While digitalisation is widely promoted as a key enabler of sustainability through increased efficiency and data-driven innovation, the growing environmental costs of digital infrastructures — such as energy-intensive data centers — are increasingly acknowledged. The contribution argues that current EU policy imaginaries remain rooted in neoliberal logics, emphasizing economic competitiveness and growth, often at odds with the ecological limits demanded by true sustainability. Through the lens of digital humanism and critical data studies, the paper calls to explore how dominant visions of the digital/data economy are inherently unsustainable, built upon assumptions of infinite expansion and unbounded data accumulation. It builds on the concept of “waste” as a critical entry point for rethinking digital policy: both in terms of data that is unnecessary or unused, and the resource-intensive nature of digital technologies.

ABSTRACT. Artificial intelligence (AI) is currently considered a sustainability "game-changer" within and outside of academia. I argue that while there are indeed many sustainability-related use cases for AI, they are likely to have more overall drawbacks than benefits. To substantiate this claim, I differentiate three 'AI materialities' of the AI supply chain: first the literal materiality (e.g. water, cobalt, lithium, energy consumption etc.), second, the informational materiality (e.g. lots of data and centralised control necessary), and third, the social materiality (e.g. exploitative data work, communities harm by waste and pollution). In all materialities, effects are especially devastating for the global south while benefiting the global north. A second strong claim regarding sustainable AI circles around so called apolitical optimisation (e.g. regarding city traffic), however the optimisation criteria (e.g. cars, bikes, emissions, commute time, health) are purely political and have to be collectively negotiated before applying AI optimisation. Hence, sustainable AI, in principle, cannot break the glass ceiling of transformation and might even distract from necessary societal change. To address that I propose to stop 'unformation gathering' and to apply the 'small is beautiful' principle. This aims to contribute to an informed academic and collective negotiation on how to (not) integrate AI into the sustainability project while avoiding to reproduce the status quo by serving hegemonic interests between useful AI use cases, techno-utopian salvation narratives, technologycentred efficiency paradigms, the exploitative and extractivist character of AI and concepts of digital degrowth. In order to discuss sustainable AI, this article draws from insights by critical data and algorithm studies, STS, transformative sustainability science, critical computer science, and public interest theory.

ABSTRACT. The rapid rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has significantly disrupted modern societies, reshaping key areas such as education, the economy, the media and political communication. Since OpenAI's pioneering ChatGPT software was publicly released in November 2022, followed by a growing ecosystem of similar tools, debates surrounding the societal opportunities, challenges, and risks of AI have intensified. These discussions are taking place across various scientific disciplines, as well as in politics and the economy. But what does the general public know about AI? Can the public identify when AI is being used? Which uses are seen as appropriate, and which are not? This short article is based on the 2024 Digital Skills Austria study and reveals that the public often struggles to identify instances of AI usage in everyday contexts, frequently misjudging scenarios that could lead to hallucinations and misinformation.

ABSTRACT. Digital literacy is a central topic to foster the development of knowledge, skills, and attitudes to provide an essential framework for critical lifelong engagement with platforms, yet one that has been mainly debated in the Global North countries. Against this background, this article focuses on Brazil, subject of an ongoing pilot case. It emphasizes the agency of young people to play a multi-disciplinary role to curb disinformation at the school level. It poses the following research question: how can educators design digital literacies pedagogical approaches in order to curb disinformation? The goals are twofold. First, it seeks to overcome the current academic disregard for the exploration of peripheral ways of using and understanding digital literacies, while designing critical pedagogies that constitute frameworks beyond Western Europe and the US. Second, the article seeks to break through the silos of academic disciplines currently looking at digital literacy based on technological solutionism. The analysis is structured via three research axes: digital literacy by definition (to foster awareness and basic understanding of platform society), digital literacy by critical pedagogy (critical understanding the social, economic, cultural and technical aspects of platforms), and digital literacy by co-creation (to achieve personal and civic goals with the help of others). In doing so, this article designs pluriversal paths beyond data universalism, mainly situating contextual inequalities, socio-cultural nuances and disinformation ecosystem from the Global South(s), while avoiding a one-dimensional view of the world.

ABSTRACT. This paper argues that for AI to serve the public good, it must align with the principles of open science and open knowledge. We propose concrete ac-tions that Digital Humanism can support within higher education, research, and policy advocacy to ensure AI development prioritizes human rights, ethical responsibility, and the public benefit. We emphasize the importance of existing open infrastructures, which can serve as models for transparent, accessible, and accountable AI development. By fostering collaboration across disciplines and sectors, Digital Humanism can guide the creation of sustainable AI ecosystems. Europe, with its established open science and knowledge commons infrastructure, is uniquely positioned to lead this ef-fort, with Digital Humanism playing a crucial role in facilitating this trans-formation.

ABSTRACT. The paper suggests vulnerability as a central ethical concept for Digital Human-ism. In going beyond just a criticism of transhumanism, vulnerability is pre-sented as a foundation of a Digital Humanist ethical theory and for designing a vision of a good digital life.

ABSTRACT. This position paper is an essay on the promise of AI to "solve" biology its cultural undertones, and its political implications; it briefly discusses the history of thinking surrounding automated systems, while pointing out to new types of subjectivity emerging from the generalised use to AI.

ABSTRACT. The aim of this paper is to explain the struggle for disciplinary identity of Game Scholars and the need for a coherent Ludology. A focus on games and game design that is not merely orientated towards existing disciplines, but develops from the materiality and logic of the game itself. Within the agenda of digital humanism, this project seeks to understand the relationship of computer science and digital culture of our age with regard to the ongoing rapid transformations and innovations. These technological advances need to be mediated to the individual ways of handling knowledge. Thus, there is a need to understand and critically examine the materiality and functionality of interfaces and media, their playful (mis-)use and hacks that are part of the actual transformation of our knowledge society. Games and play are entities in their own right that need to be discussed with regards to the complex social, psychological/biological and media-technological aspects at once, without favouring one of those aspects for methodological reasons. ‘Paperwork vs. Paperplay’ sets out to examine playing cards in a longitudinal media-historical study. They thus appear as paradigmatic interfaces between legibility and playability. This short paper discusses the results of a funded research project and actualizes its questions, explaining why it matters and presenting an outlook of potential upcoming research focussing on the prototypical playing card. It stands out as an artifact, exemplifying the ludic potential as a special appeal, but also a liberating force for empowering autonomy. This should allow for a fruitful discussion in regard to major problems pointed out in the field of digital humanism.

ABSTRACT. In this position paper, we argue that while digitalization amplifies biases towards only few languages dominating the linguistic landscape, modern language technology can help to mitigate language loss. We first elaborate on how the linguistic landscape in the digital and the non-digital sphere are distributionally different from each other in that the latter is strongly biased towards English, at the same time under-representing thousands of languages and the cultural knowledge that they encode. In a second step, we present results of qualitative interviews on individual linguistic experiences in the digital and the non-digital sphere that we have conducted in Québec, one of the provinces of Canada known for its linguistic diversity. These interviews highlight the potential that modern language technology have for safeguarding linguistic diversity. We conclude that the study of the impact of digitalization on the global linguistic landscape not only requires differential ways of measuring linguistic diversity but also a nuanced operationalization of digitalization.