Munich AI Lecture with the A.M. Turing Award winner Prof. Yoshua Bengio

News

Don’t miss the upcoming  Munich AI Lecture featuring Prof. Yoshua Bengio from Université de Montréal.

As AI capabilities accelerate, a critical question emerges: can we ensure these systems remain aligned with human values? While advances in reasoning and planning bring us closer to broadly human-level intelligence, recent findings also reveal troubling behaviors such as deception, hacking, and resistance to shutdown.

In his Munich AI Lecture, Yoshua Bengio will explore these challenges and outline a safer path forward. He argues for the design of non-agentic yet trustworthy AIs — systems modeled after a selfless scientist, dedicated to understanding the world rather than pursuing their own goals. Such “Scientist AIs” could act as monitors, helping society manage more powerful agentic systems and reduce existential risks. Beyond technical solutions, Bengio calls for political coordination at national and international levels, treating transformative AI as a global public good essential for safeguarding democracy and stability.

The lecture will be followed by a panel discussion, including panelists Andrea Martin (Chief Technology Officer, IBM), relAI Director Prof. Dr. Gitta Kutyniok, and Stephanie Jacobs (Head of Office, Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts), which will be moderated by Dr. Michael Klimke (CEO, BAIOSPHERE).

📍 Bavarian Academy of Sciences Alfons-Goppel-Str. 11 (Residenz) 80539 Munich

📅 23 October 2025  

🕡 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm

About the Speaker

Yoshua Bengio is Full Professor at Université de Montréal, Founder and Scientific Advisor of Mila, Co-President and Scientific Director of LawZero, and Canada CIFAR AI Chair. A recipient of the 2018 A.M. Turing Award — often called the “Nobel Prize of computing” — he is the most cited computer scientist worldwide and among the most cited living scientists across all fields. Bengio is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London and Canada, an Officer of the Order of Canada, a Knight of the French Legion of Honor, and currently chairs the International AI Safety Report.

Registration

The event is already fully booked. If you would like to get put on the waiting list, please send  a message: events@baiosphere.org

The lecture will also be available via LIVESTREAM on YouTube (no registration needed).

More information:

https://baiosphere.org/en/events/2025/munich-ai-lecture-prof-yoshua-bengio

https://www.lmu.de/ai-hub/en/news-events/all-events/event/munich-ai-lecture-prof.-yoshua-bengio.html

Last weekend, relAI engaged with children during the TUM Open Doors with the Mouse 2025 event at the Munich Data Science Institute (MDSI). Students from relAI - Manuel Hülskamp, Natascha Niessen, Lisa Schmierer, and Richard Schwank - enthusiastically participated, using computer games to explain concepts of machine learning and artificial intelligence to the young attendees. The children learned how to train an AI model to differentiate between apples, pears, bananas, and plums, and they even had the opportunity to recognize their own faces, testing this feature with their siblings and other visitors.

A heartfelt thank you to the relAI students and coordinator Andrea Schafferhans for their support of the event, as well as to the families who participated.

Check the MDSI news for extensive information about the event.

relAI is excited to announce that GE HealthCare has become an official industry partner.

As one of the leading global providers of MRI, ultrasound, and other medical imaging technologies, GE HealthCare is dedicated to creating a world where medicine and healthcare have no limits. Their mission aligns closely with relAI’s focus on safety and security, aiming to provide high-quality, reliable devices to improve patient care. GE HealthCare is furthermore connected to relAI through PhD students Natascha Niessen and Ha Young Kim, who are both PhD scientists at GE HealthCare.

GE HealthCare is eager to connect with young talents at relAI and support them in their career development and educational journeys. To facilitate this connection, GE HealthCare will host an event, offering relAI students the opportunity to learn more about the work being done at the R&D site in Munich. This event will also allow students to explore potential collaborations and meet professionals who are shaping the future of medical technology.

 

Registration for the Munich Career Fair AI & Data Science 2025 is now open! You can request your ticket here.

📅 Date and Time: October 23, 2025, 2 to 5 pm

📍 Location: TranslaTUM at Klinikum rechts der Isar, Einsteinstraße 25 (Bau 522), 81675 Munich

🏢Participating companies: Celonis, DENSO, Diehl, GE Healthcare, Google, Imfusion, Munich Re, QuantCo, SAP, Thyssenkrupp, and Zeiss

👉 Check out this link for more information and the agenda

Education is a crucial societal priority and a strategic focus for the application of reliable AI. To address this, relAI has introduced a new research area: Learning & Instruction. This initiative will be led by relAI fellows Prof. Jochen Kuhn from LMU and Prof. Enkeledja Kasneci from TUM, both of whom are experts in educational technology. 

Learning & Instruction focuses on exploring how reliable AI can be used to transform education in meaningful and responsible ways. It investigates the potential of intelligent tutoring systems, adaptive feedback, and digital learning assistants to personalize learning paths and provide targeted support. At the same time, it examines the broader effects of AI on teaching and learning: how AI systems shape learner motivation, teacher roles, and the dynamics of human-AI collaboration. 

By bringing together expertise from artificial intelligence, learning sciences, and educational research, Learning & Instruction aims to develop robust and trustworthy AI applications that not only advance technology, but also serve pedagogical goals and democratic values. .

We are excited to announce that the European Research Council (ERC) has awarded a Starting Grant to relAI Fellow Niki Kilbertus for the project DYNAMICAUS, which focuses on advancing the understanding of cause-and-effect relationships in complex dynamical systems.

Many global challenges, from climate change to healthcare and pandemic preparedness, involve systems where small changes can have far-reaching effects. Understanding how interventions influence outcomes in such complex dynamics requires reliable “if-then” reasoning. Traditional mathematical dynamical models often oversimplify these systems, while purely data-driven machine learning models, though powerful, can be difficult to interpret and may not generalize well to new situations. The DYNAMICAUS project addresses this gap by combining machine learning methods with rigorous mechanistic modeling and methods from causal inference.

DYNAMICAUS aligns closely with the mission of relAI. Its goal is to provide reliable insights that address complex societal challenges in a responsible and impactful way. Additionally, a key application area for these methods is medicine & healthcare, where the aim is to enhance treatment planning by improving the anticipation of patient outcomes.

More Information:

https://www.nat.tum.de/en/nat/latest/article/six-erc-starting-grants-for-researchers-at-tum/

https://www.helmholtz-munich.de/en/newsroom/news-all/artikel/niki-kilbertus-receives-erc-starting-grant-for-causal-analysis-in-complex-systems

Don’t miss the upcoming  Munich AI Lecture featuring Prof. Aaron M. Johnson fromCarnegie Mellon University and Visiting Professor at TUM.

What happens when robots leave the lab and enter the real world? Suddenly, uncertainty is everywhere — slippery mud, bending branches, unpredictable terrain. These challenges are especially tough when it comes to contact: one moment a robot applies massive force, the next it has no grip at all.

In his talk, Aaron M. Johnson shows how robots can learn to master the unknown — from off-road driving in new environments to agile walking through vegetation. Expect cutting-edge insights into how uncertainty can be modeled, reduced, and even turned into an advantage for the future of robotics.

📍 Georg-Brauchle-Ring 58, Room M001
The TUM Room finder will help you find the way

More information:

The Munich Data Science Institute (MDSI), the Konrad Zuse School of Excellence in Reliable AI (relAI), the Munich Center for Machine Learning (MCML), and the AI Hub@LMU are organizing the Munich Career Fair AI & Data Science at TranslaTUM on October 23, 2025. The event is tailored to companies and students (bachelor's, master's, and doctoral candidates) who are interested in AI, ML, and data science.

We are pleased to announce that the first Munich Career Fair AI & Data Science 2025 will take place on October 23, 2025, at TranslaTUM. This year, we welcome eleven industry partners and students in bachelor's and master's programs, as well as doctoral candidates. The aim is to connect students at various stages of their education with industry representatives and to highlight career prospects in the field of AI and data science in the Munich ecosystem.

Each industry partner will present its activities in the field of AI and data science in an overview talk and introduce the associated career opportunities. In addition, there will be plenty of time and space for networking and personal exchange in the foyer of TranslaTUM and in separate meeting rooms.

 Event Details

📅 Date and Time: October 23, 2025, 2 to 5 pm

📍 Location: TranslaTUM at Klinikum rechts der Isar, Einsteinstraße 25 (Bau 522), 81675 Munich

📝 Registration: Registration is open now! Please request a ticket here.

Agenda

TimeAffiliationSpeakerTalk title
14:00OrganisorsDr. Thomas Müller
Dr. Andrea Schafferhans		Welcome
14:05CelonisNiclas SabelThe Power of Agentic AI: Driving Organizational Transformation and Efficiency
14:20DENSOBrian Hsuan-Cheng LiaoThe Development of Reliable AI-Driven Vehicles in DENSO
14:35DiehlAriane Jesussek
Joel Eichberger
Matthew Schwind		AI at Diehl - Implementing AI in a diversified technology group
14:50GE HealthcareDr. Timo SchirmerThe Human Algorithm in Healthcare: Careers and AI in Times of Disruption
15:05GoogleIrina Stambolska Google AI, Data Science and Careers
15:20ImfusionDr. Raphael PrevostEnabling Rapid Innovation in Medical Imaging with AI
15:35MunichReKarolina StosioData & AI @ Munich Re
15:50QuantCoCarolin ThomasQuantCo
16:05SAPYichen LouTowards Intelligent Enterprise Systems - AI @ SAP
16:20ThyssenkruppDr. Nikou GünnemannKI@thyssenkrupp
16:35ZeissDr. Florent MartinAI and ML in ZEISS

🎉 Congratulations!

The month of July has brought excellent news for our relAI Fellows. Prof. Fabian Theis and Prof. Pramod Bhatotia have each received a European Research Council (ERC) Proof of Concept Grant, which supports scientists who want to develop marketable innovations based on their research results.

Pramod Bhatotia's ERC-funded project is set to optimize cloud computing by enhancing the security and reliability of online systems. Meanwhile, Fabian Theis´s initiative aims to integrate single-cell genomics, advanced computational models, and generative AI to tackle one of the biggest challenges in drug therapy: precise targeting. For more information on the funded projects, please visit this site.

The innovative research of Fabian Theis has also been recognized with the 2025 International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) Innovator Award. This recognition is presented annually to a leading scientist who not only makes progressive contributions to computational biology but also consistently pursues unexplored directions in the field.

Finally, Prof. Nassir Navab has been awarded the renowned 2025 IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) Technical Achievement Award for his pioneering role in establishing medical augmented reality, surgical data science, and robotic imaging as research fields.

👏 Congratulations!

relAI Fellow Jochen Kuhn has been elected Vice President for Innovation in Education and Teacher Training of LMU. Alongside the other nine new Vice Presidents appointed last week by the LMU University Council, Jochen Kuhn will play an active role in shaping the discourse on addressing the social challenges of our time. To succeed in this endeavour, interdisciplinarity, combined with specialist expertise in key areas such as digitalization and artificial intelligence, is essential.

Jochen Kuhn has served as the Chair of Physics Education at LMU’s Faculty of Physics since 2022, and he is working in AI in Education within relAI. This election will accelerate the advancement of this area.

For more Information, click this link.