STARTS Talk: Human Agency In The Robotic World

Lecture by Alexander Mankowsky

In collaboration with BOZAR lab, Gluon invited Alexander Mankowsky for a talk about life and mobility in the future.

How is artificial intelligence (AI) influencing tomorrow’s mobility solutions? How can the community be optimized by machine support and above all – how does this affect people? These are the central questions discussed by Alexander Mankowsky, futurologist at the automotive company Daimler.

Under the title ‘Human Agency In A Robotic World’ Mankowsky will discuss the design requirements needed to retain or enhance human agency when dealing with devices, using the autonomous car as an example.

Biography

Born in Berlin in 1957, Alexander Mankowsky studied Philosophy, Psychology and Sociology at the Free University of Berlin. He graduated in 1984 with the title of ‘Diplom Soziologe’. After four years in social services helping troubled children, he decided to follow the ‘Zeitgeist’ and enrolled at a post graduate university, focusing on the then new field of Artificial Intelligence. After heavy programming in OOS and Prolog, he earned himself the title of ‘Knowledge Engineer’.

Since 1989 Alexander Mankowsky has worked in the research unit at Daimler, the producer and manufacturer of Mercedes-Benz vehicles. His work for the German automaker originally concentrated on social trends in matters of mobility; his current research focuses on the future. At Daimler Alexander works on innovations with the goal of humanizing self-less driving. Beyond the technical and legal aspects, he is therefore looking very closely at social issues, believing that it is essential to develop a shared interaction language to enable functioning social “human-machine cooperation” in the traffic of the future.