Digital humanism is a very young discipline. How would you describe it to people who haven’t heard of it yet?

Marta Sabou: Digital humanism is a very important initiative – and it actually started here in Vienna. In 2019, researchers from around the world came together to write the “Vienna Manifesto on Digital Humanism.” Simply put, it says that computer science has a profound influence on our lives, but there is a lack of accountability thereof. Do we really want to leave so many decisions about how we live our lives and interact with each other to computers and algorithms? This question has become even more pressing with the recent boom in AI. This brought digital humanism to the forefront.

Jan Maly: Information technology has solved many problems for us – but it has also created many new challenges. We have to make sure that computer science is a net benefit to society. I think everyone would agree with this statement – but there’s an important twist: How can we define what a benefit to society is, scientifically? To answer this question, we as computer scientists have to engage in interdisciplinary research with social scientists. Digital humanism provides a framework to perform this type of research.

When you say that information technology has created problems, what do you have in mind?

Marta Sabou: A major issue is how social media influences our society – and especially our democracy. Another one is sustainability. We have to make sure that information technology doesn’t destroy the planet with its ever-increasing hunger for energy. In the early days of the web, there was this optimism that information technology would help our society become more democratic, inclusive, and sustainable, but sadly, this sentiment has been turned on its head.  

Jan Maly: That’s what I find inspiring about digital humanism: It’s an optimistic approach! The goal is not only to identify these problems but to find ways to solve them by bringing together researchers from different disciplines.

In October 2024, WU launched the Vienna Doctoral College for Digital Humanism together with the University of Vienna and TU Wien. How did this come about?

Marta Sabou: In recent years, there have been several calls for projects by the WWTF Vienna Science and Technology Fund on the topic of digital humanism. But there was no overarching framework to bring researchers working on these projects together. With this doctoral college, we finally have a place to exchange ideas and make this interdisciplinary approach work. It will be a home for those PhD students who were hired as part of previous calls for digital humanism projects, but also for new ones. Our goal is to build a community of digital humanists who complement each other in their research interests get involved in lots of discussions, research projects, and events – such as the Digital Humanism Conference in May 2025.

Jan Maly: That’s also why it’s great that we coordinate the doctoral college together with excellent researchers from the University of Vienna and TU Wien – communication scientist Sophie Lecheler and data science specialist Peter Knees. This way, we can bring together people from many different fields. Not only computer science and communication science, but also political science, economics, architecture, and philosophy.

Speaking of interdisciplinarity: Even at WU itself, there’s a wide variety of researchers who participate in this project. Could you give us a short rundown?

Marta Sabou: Sure! We have Verena Dorner, who investigates digital ecosystems, and Sabrina Kirrane, another computer scientist who specializes in usage control and data privacy. Then there’s Thomas Reutterer who is an expert in digital marketing and customer analytics. Also on board is social psychologist Christina Schamp, who will lead the project on AI Literacy and Inclusive User Design here at WU. And there’s also Gerlinde Fellner-Röhling, who does fascinating work in behavioral economics. I’m very much looking forward to working together with all these experts in their respective fields. And we hope that our community will grow even bigger!

Jan, you are at the helm of one of the research projects in the doctoral college. Its title is quite the mouthful: “Citizen-centered democratic innovation: Understanding citizen preferences for participatory budgeting algorithms.” Can you explain what it is about?

Jan: In my research, I’ve specialized in a field called computational social choice. In this field, we explore collective decision-making at the intersection of computer science, economics, and political science. One real-world application of this is participatory budgeting. The idea behind this concept is simple: When a city has money to allocate, it asks its citizens to decide where the funds should go. This project is a continuation of my research. We now have a lot of technical knowledge about how participatory budgeting works – but we don’t know what people actually want. This is where digital humanism comes in: What do people want? And what is it that we want to achieve for the benefit of society?

How would you answer these questions?

Jan: That’s the thing: We as computer scientists cannot fully answer these questions. This is why I joined forces with Carolina Plescia who is a political scientist at the University of Vienna. She told me that she has the opposite problem: They do a lot of research on what people desire, but they don’t know how to implement it. Together we can work on participatory budgeting algorithms that actually reflect what people want.

Where can people find out more about your work? And how can young researchers join the Doctoral College for Digital Humanism?

Marta: As mentioned before, our first Digital Humanism Conference will take place from May 26 to 28, 2025. I’m looking forward to lively discussions, and I hope that many people from different fields will join us. And to all the young researchers out there who want to join us: We launched the first call for five PhD student positions last week. The application deadline is January 15, 2025!

Further information

Project site of the Vienna Doctoral College on Digital Humanism at WU Research

Call for five PhD positions at the Vienna Doctoral College on Digital Humanism