Yesterday, were happy to host Prof. Ingmar Weber for an engaging research seminar, where he presented the impressive breadth of data science applications to societal questions and challenges. Prof. Weber is an Alexander von Humboldt Professor in AI at Saarland University where he holds the Chair for Societal Computing.
During his talk, Prof. Weber demonstrated how his group applies AI to various non-traditional data sources, such as satellite imagery, which can reveal population movements and demographic shifts by analyzing urban land use over time. Another aspect of the seminar was the role of large language models (LLMs) in political opinion-forming, showing that they can be used as tools for analyzing the political discourse but also enable chatbots that give voting advice.
In addition, Prof. Weber introduced the SOUNDS (Societal Observatory Using Novel Data Sources) initiative, a recently launched project supported by Saarland’s Transformation Program for Research and Knowledge Transfer. This project aims to leverage unconventional data sources and research methodologies to bridge the gap between innovative, empirical studies and their application to pressing societal issues.
We thank Prof. Weber for the time to share his group’s fascinating work and the insightful presentation.