KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Professor Antonio Krüger
Saarland University
Keynote Title
The role of HCI in Trusted AI
Abstract
The increasing deployment of AI systems that are hard to inspect, particularly large-scale statistical models, presents a critical challenge to user trust. While AI performance is rapidly advancing, the opacity of decision-making processes often leads to skepticism, misuse, and a lack of accountability—a core concern in the development of Trusted AI. This talk discusses how Human-Computer Interaction(HCI) can help to address this trust deficit, arguing that well-designed interaction patterns are needed to increase transparency and as such trust in complex systems. The talk will discuss several examples from AI systems deployed in domains associated with high risk, such as medicine, production and automated driving. Antonio Krüger is the CEO and Scientific Director of Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz GmbH (DFKI), as well as the Scientific Director of the Cognitive Assistants research department at DFKI. Antonio has been a professor of computer science and head of the Ubiquitous Media Technology Lab at Saarland University since 2009 and his research combines methods from human-computer-interaction and artificial intelligence.
Bio
The increasing deployment of AI systems that are hard to inspect, particularly large-scale statistical models, presents a critical challenge to user trust. While AI performance is rapidly advancing, the opacity of decision-making processes often leads to skepticism, misuse, and a lack of accountability—a core concern in the development of Trusted AI. This talk discusses how Human-Computer Interaction(HCI) can help to address this trust deficit, arguing that
well-designed interaction patterns are needed to increase transparency and as such trust in complex systems. The talk will discuss several examples from AI systems deployed in domains associated with high risk, such as medicine, production and automated driving.
Antonio Krüger is the CEO and Scientific Director of Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz GmbH (DFKI), as well as the Scientific Director of the Cognitive Assistants research department at DFKI. Antonio has been a professor of computer science
and head of the Ubiquitous Media Technology Lab at Saarland University since 2009 and his research combines methods from human-computer-interaction and artificial intelligence.
Professor Pattie Maes
MIT Media Lab
Keynote Title
Designing AI Interaction for Human Flourishing
Abstract
AI is increasingly mediating our entire human experience—the way we live, work, make decisions, socialize, consume information, and express ourselves. This raises a fundamental question: How do we ensure that this development is ultimately beneficial for people and society?
The promise is substantial. AI offers opportunities for increased productivity and creativity in work, earlier disease detection and personalized treatments in healthcare, adaptive learning in education, intelligent assistance for daily tasks, and enhanced accessibility for the elderly and people with impairments.
Yet the reality of AI impact is so far mixed at best. We are witnessing concerning trends: increased vulnerability to misinformation and manipulation, erosion of critical thinking skills and human agency, declining interest in learning alongside loss of previously acquired skills, weakening social ties as companion bots replace human connection, emerging mental health challenges, and displacement of meaningful work.
As designers and researchers of intelligent user interfaces, we face a critical challenge: How should we design AI interfaces and applications to capture the benefits while preventing these negative outcomes? This talk will explore the key problems that must be addressed, the studies that need to be performed, and the design approaches that should be experimented with to answer this question. Our goal is not simply to advance AI capabilities, but to ensure that as AI advances, people and humanity advance as well. The future of human-AI interaction depends on our ability to create interfaces that augment rather than diminish human potential, foster rather than replace human connection, and empower rather than erode human agency.
Bio
Pattie Maes is the Germeshausen Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the MIT Media Lab where she does research at the intersection of Human Computer Interaction and Artificial Intelligence. She is also an affiliated faculty member at MIT’s center for Neuro-Biological Engineering. Maes pioneered the concept of Software Agents in the 90s and remains focused on the question of how computer systems and digital devices might augment people and assist them with issues such as memory, learning, decision making, health and wellbeing.
Maes is the editor of four books, has published over 500 peer-reviewed articles, and is an editorial board member and reviewer for numerous professional journals and conferences. She is the recipient of several awards: Netguru selected her for “Hidden Heroes: the people who shaped technology (2022), Time Magazine has included several of her designs in its annual list of inventions of the year; The American Association for Artificial Intelligence gave her the “classic paper 2012” prize, awarded to the most influential AI paper of the year, Fast Company named her one of 50 most influential designers (2011); Newsweek picked her as one of the “100 Americans to watch for” (2000); TIME Digital selected her as a member of the “Cyber Elite,” the top 50 technological pioneers of the high-tech world; the World Economic Forum honored her with the title “Global Leader for Tomorrow”; Ars Electronica awarded her the 1995 World Wide Web category prize; and in 2025 she was recognized with the “Lifetime Achievement Award in Human Computer Interaction” by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). She also received honorary doctorates from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium and Open Universiteit, Netherlands, and has given several TED talks.