Delft Haptics Lab

AiTech

Abstract

AiTech is the TU Delft mission-oriented science, design and engineering initiative on the future of autonomous technology and human responsibility in digital societies. Digitalization is driven by technologies and socio-economic impact of, for instance, data science, artificial intelligence, robotics and the internet-of-things. With the pervasive trend towards autonomous and intelligent digital systems, AiTech positions TU Delft as a university where new digital artefacts are designed and engineered that are under meaningful human control, in this way stimulating innovation of beneficial digital products, services and societal developments.

AiTech research focuses on what meaningful human control implies in the practice of design, engineering and building such interfaces, algorithms and systems, both from a (guiding) theoretical and a practical design and engineering point of view. An interdisciplinary approach, encompassing science, engineering, design and ethical and societal elements, is taken to tackle this significant challenge. The very nature of the problem of meaningful human control over autonomous intelligent systems requires not only a multidisciplinary approach, but also an approach that enables the crossing of systems levels. At the one end we have research that develop core technology enabling autonomous intelligent systems. On the opposite end – via applications/use of the technology and integration – we find the systemic and societal impact of these technologies, and the articulation of desirable properties of the technology and way it is used and integrated in applications, in the case of AiTech the meaningful human control.

The programme is led by prof Inald Lagendijk, and is organized in an interdisciplinary team of postdocs, supervised by professors at different faculties at Delft. Prof. Abbink is the liaison for the Faculty of 3mE, and directly supervises two postdocs who will work from June 2019 – June 2021 on the AiTech project.