This is the title of the next TU Wien DigHum Lecture Series talk:

Tuesday, January 20, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. (17:00) Central European Time (UTC+1)

Topic: “The Science Fiction Science Method”
(scroll down for abstract and CV)

Speaker: Iyad Rahwan (Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin)
Moderator: Bashar Nuseibeh (The Open University, UK)

To participate in the talks via Zoom go to: https://tuwien.zoom.us/j/96389928143?pwd=UU5YRkNuRmdoWHV4MFBwMWRCcUErdz09
(Password: 0dzqxqiy)

The talk will be live streamed and recorded on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/digitalhumanism

For further announcements and information about the speakers in the Lecture Series, see https://dighum.org/#latest-news. Please note that you can access the slides and recordings of our past events via that link.


Announcement of our next events:
03.02.26 DigHum Lecture Dario Guarascio: “The Military-Digital Complex: Digital Technologies and the New World (dis)Ordert”
10.02.26 Discussion with MEP Brando Benifei
24.02.26 DigHum Lecture Sayeed Choudhury: “The Imperative of Openness in AI””
10.03.26 DigHum Lecture Stefan Szeider on “LLMs when left alone”
24.03.26 DigHum Lecture Darja Djordjevic on AI Compagnions 

We are looking forward to seeing you!

Stefan Woltran




—–
Sign the Vienna Manifesto: https://dighum.ec.tuwien.ac.at
Follow us on Bluesky @dighumtuwien.bsky.social>
—–

ABSTRACT “The Science Fiction Science Method”:

Can we predict the social and behavioral impacts of future technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence, while they are still being developed in scientific labs, or even when they are just imaginations in the minds of a science fiction writer? Such prediction would allow us to guide development and regulation of technologies before their impacts get entrenched. This talk describes ‘science fiction science’ (sci-fi-sci), the use of experimental methods to simulate future technologies, and collect quantitative measures of the attitudes and behaviors of participants assigned to controlled variations of the future. I present various recent sci-fi-sci projects aimed at anticipating the societal impacts of Artificial Intelligence, and discuss the potential and limitations of this form of science.

Short Bio of Iyad Rahwan:

Prof. Iyad Rahwan is director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, where he founded and directs the Center for Humans & Machines. He is also an honorary professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Technical University of Berlin. Prior to moving to Berlin, he was an Associate Professor of Media Arts & Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A native of Aleppo, Syria, Rahwan holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne, Australia. Rahwan’s research agenda, which he calls science fiction science, anticipates the impact of Artificial Intelligence on the way we think, learn, work, play, cooperate and govern. His work appeared in the world’s leading academic journals, including Science and Nature, and features regularly in media outlets, including the New York Times, The Economist, and the Wall Street Journal. His artistic and scientific work was also featured in some of the world’s leading cultural institutions, such as Ars Electronica, Science Museum London and Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum.

Short Bio of Bashar Nuseibeh:

Bashar Nuseibeh a Professor of Computing and Head of Software Engineering & Design at The Open University, UK. He is an Honorary Professor at University College London (UCL), and a Visiting Professor at the National Institute of Informatics (NII), Japan, and University College Dublin (UCD), Ireland. Previously he was is a Professor of Software Engineering and Chief Scientist of Lero, The Irish Software Research Centre, and an Associate Professor (Reader) at Imperial College London and Head of of it’s Software Engineering Laboratory. Bashar’s software engineering research interests lie at the intersection of requirements engineering, adaptive systems, and security & privacy. In recent years, he has focused on human and social factors in computing, working across the disciplinary boundaries of software engineering and social psychology, and publishing in both communities and their applications areas, such as in healthcare & well-being, crime & policing, and sustainability. Bashar was Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems, and Springer’s Automated Software Engineering Journal. He has received many awards for his work, including the IEEE Computer Society’s Harlan D Mills Award in 2025. He received two European Research Council (ERC) grants including an Advanced Grant on Adaptive Security and Privacy. He is a Fellow of the UK Royal Academy of Engineering, the ACM, IET, BCS, ICS, and is a Member of Academia Europaea and the Royal Irish Academy.