Keynote speech 1

Prof. on Interfacing Law and Technology at Vrije Universiteit Brussels

Mireille Hildebrandt is a lawyer and legal philosopher specializing in the implications of artificial intelligence and automated decision-making for law. She has been a Research Professor on ‘Interfacing Law and Technology’ at Vrije Universiteit Brussels (VUB), and co-Director of the Research Group on Law Science Technology and Society studies (LSTS) at the Faculty of Law and Criminology. She has published a textbook with Oxford University Press. From 2019 to 2024, she led the ERC AdG research project on COHUBICOL. She is also the co-founder and editor of the Journal for Cross-Disciplinary Research in Computational Law (CRCL).

Head of the Public Interest AI research group funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)

Theresa Züger is head of the Public Interest AI research group funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The group is concerned with the question of how AI can serve the public interest and which technical and social criteria must be fulfilled for this to happen. She is also lead of the AI & Society Lab. Theresa’s research focuses on the political dimensions of digital technologies and cultures, with particular interest in questions of democratic theory.

Previously, she headed the office of the Third Engagement Report from the Federal Government on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ), which focuses on the digitalization of civic engagement. For the Medienanstalt Berlin-Brandenburg, she developed and managed the Media Policy Lab, a project on science networking in the field of intermediary regulation. She is part of the scientific council of the Acatech TechnikRadar and a member of the commission of the Digital Transformation Think Tank of the German Caritas Association.