Artificial intelligence is changing the way we live, work and learn. But what are we actually dealing with? Does AI think or does it just process data? Can it really understand - or just imitate? How do human prejudices get into AI systems and how can they be corrected? What happens when AI optimizes the wrong goals, and who benefits from profound upheavals? Which skills will be crucial in an AI-driven future?

Johannes Wiek, Manuel Dolderer and Sebastian Benkhofer provide insights into the Witten Lab's Understanding AI Initiative (UAI), which seeks answers to these and other questions. It includes the UAI seminar in the Studium fundamentale, which is open to all UW/H members and in which students from UW/H and CODE University Berlin work together for the first time, the practice-oriented UAI Club for projects and interdisciplinary exchange, and a new issue of the WITTEN LAB MAGAZINE on artificial intelligence, to which numerous UW/H thought leaders and AI experts contribute.