This one-day workshop at 5 March 2026 surveyed how AI is reshaping research practice across institutional, natural science, and social science domains, and culminated in a culturally grounded keynote on AI’s opacity and possible meanings in Southeast Asian Islamic contexts.

Bernd Wachmann (Chief Digital Strategy Officer of the ÖAW) presented “Current AI Topics and Outlook @ ÖAW,” mapping the Academy’s priorities for AI adoption: integrating AI into scholarly workflows, building reliable data infrastructures, advancing governance and risk management, and developing capability across units. He addressed practical implementation questions – scalability, interoperability, and responsible use – alongside opportunities for innovation and collaboration.

In the natural sciences segment, Claudius Krause (Marietta Blau Institute for Particle Physics at the ÖAW) discussed “Risks, Rewards, and Relationships: ML in the Natural Sciences and MLA² Thematic Platform of the ÖAW.” He examined how machine learning reshapes research pipelines from data collection and processing to inference. Krause introduced the MLA² platform as a hub for cross-disciplinary method sharing and coordination, emphasizing the relational aspects between researchers, models, datasets, and evaluation practices.

The afternoon focused on lived experience and social research. Following a session in which ISA staff reflected on their experiences with AI so far, Doris Allhutter’s (Institute of Technology Assessment at the ÖAW) “Using Generative AI in Qualitative Social Research” critically explored methodological and ethical issues sharing concerns about bias, provenance, consent, reflexivity, and the risks of over-automation. She outlined the challenges for transparent, ethical, and context-sensitive use of generative systems in interpretive work.
 

The keynote by Bart Barendregt (Leiden University), “The Magic of Black Boxes: Explorations into the World of Southeast Asian Islam, Emergent Technologies and the Unseen,” exemplified how innovative anthropological research about AI can look like. His talk revealed how AI’s “black box” character intersects with religious practice, authority, and imaginaries of the unseen in Southeast Asia. Barendregt reframed technical debates on explainability and accountability as cultural and ethical questions, showing how hidden computational processes mediate knowledge, ritual, trust, and agency. His talk offered a vital bridge between AI’s design choices and their lived consequences across diverse communities.

Program