Welcome to the Center for Science and Thought
The Center for Science and Thought (CST) is a radically interdisciplinary platform designed to address urgent questions that arise at the intersection of philosophy and various natural sciences.
The CST is located at Konrad-Zuse-Platz 1-3, 53227 Bonn.
Current News of the CST
"Human technology has been reaching beyond Earth for generations—from satellites and space probes to radio signals detectable across interstellar distances. The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) builds on the idea that if our technologies are detectable, others' might be too. Because aspects of this search often reflect directly back onto ourselves and our planet, SETI offers an opportunity for cosmic reflection. What do our technologies reveal about us as humans? How do they shape sustainability, communication, and the way we represent ourselves? Using SETI as a lens, we'll explore how we judge extraordinary claims, what counts as evidence, whom we trust as experts, and what these questions can teach us about reporting on emerging technologies, scientific discoveries, AI, climate change, and today's information landscape."
The talk will be given in English.
A valid festival ticket is needed to join this talk.
In its second iteration, the seminar series Cross-Cultural Approaches to Desirable AI, a collaboration between B’AI Global Forum, the University of Europe for Applied Sciences, LCFI and CST, hosted eight sessions between October 2025 and January 2026 that brought together researchers and practitioners from diverse cultural and disciplinary backgrounds. Each session explored a different topic in AI ethics, fostering intercultural and interdisciplinary dialogue on how we might envision and shape desirable AI.
Most of the talks were recorded and are now available via our video archive and on our YouTube Channel. We hope this will give you a chance to revisit your favourite sessions or share them with your students and colleagues.
Ana Ilievska’s edited volume on Humanism in the Age of AI: Ethics, Aesthetics, and Social Critique (transcript Verlag, 2026) has now been published electronically. It explores the fundamental question: What does it mean to speak of »the human« today, when it is increasingly invoked in the design, deployment, and regulation of artificial intelligence?
More Information
Here you can find additional news.
Events of the CST
29 September 2026
The online seminar series AI at a Crossroads explores underrepresented issues in the field of Artificial Intelligence, with a particular focus on its social, ethical, and cultural dimensions. Bringing together international experts from academia and practice, the series examines the impact of AI on fundamental aspects of human life while fostering interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspectives on desirable digitalization.
We are organising a workshop on the topic of the normativity of AI systems. The workshop brings together scholars working from a range of philosophical perspectives – including philosophy of language, social philosophy, philosophy of technology, and neo-Aristotelian philosophy. Through talks and critical discussions across traditions and methodologies, we hope to shed light on what the normativity of AI is, what it is not, and why these distinctions matter for philosophy and society alike.
July 01, 2026 @ CST
This talk by Professor Robin R. Wang introduces the Dui–Tong Problem—the divergence between correctness (對dui) and relational responsiveness (通tong).
You are welcome to join us digitally or in person.
Here you can find more events.
Research of the CST
The aim of the project is to develop procedures to examine generally accepted standards for AI systems and their verification, as well as to explore business models for an AI certification. Our research investigates the ethical-philosophical significance of these dimensions.
Rethinking AI for Just and Sustainable Futures.
We investigate how to design AI (artificial intelligence) and other digital technologies in a responsible way, placing the questions of social justice and environmental sustainability at the very heart of our work.
Our research program is a collaboration between the Universities of Cambridge and Bonn and numerous international partners, and is funded by the Mercator Foundation in Germany.
Polyglot: Developing Open Source Foundation Models for Low-Resource Languages
Polyglot is an initiative to close the linguistic divide in NLP by developing efficient and accessible foundation models for low-resource languages.
Polyglot is a project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (MWK) as part of TRA Sustainable Futures (University of Bonn) and the Excellence Strategy of the federal and state governments.
You can find more information about our research projects here.
We connect female* students, scientists at all career levels as well as employees from technology and administration who research and work in various disciplines on artificial intelligence (AI) at the University of Bonn.
Our goal is to bring women* at the University of Bonn together, increase their visibility and engage in a critical exchange about AI. As a female* network, “Feminist AI” supports the interdisciplinary dialog on artificial intelligence and contributes to the strengthening of female* researchers at the University of Bonn.
The network is supported by the Equal Opportunities Office of the University of Bonn with funds from the Fund for the Promotion of the Structural Anchoring of Gender Equality.
You can find a selection of publications here.
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