Empirical Computational Ethics

Welcome to the Empirical Computational Ethics research group.

Empirical Ethics continues the so-called empirical turn in philosophy by connecting insights gained through qualitative and quantitative research with value considerations.

The analytical focus thereby shifts from top-down principles to understanding what different actors consider desirable and undesirable practices and consequences, at the individual, societal or institutional level.

Unlike classical AI ethics, empirical approaches do not strive to determine a priori what is wrong and right. Instead, enquiry focuses on the perspectives and opinions of communities of practice, who simultaneously shape and are shaped by technological innovation.

Empirical Ethics implies four shifts with view on traditional approaches:

  • First, a transition from top-down reasoning toward empirical grounding.
  • Second, a transition from abstract principles to situated orders of worth.
  • Third, a proposal to operate across scales through focusing on assemblages of concern.
  • Fourth, a redirection from risk-mitigation toward the cultivation of technologies of hope.

For more information, see our upcoming Special Issue on Empirical Ethics at the newly founded Cambridge Forum for AI: Culture and Society.

Current Activities

Special Issue on Empirical AI Ethics at Cambridge Forum for AI!!!

Deadline passed, first Publications expected in May 2026.

 

Workshop on Foundation Models and the AI Act: Regulation, Certification, Operationalization

May 11th, 10.00-13.00, Center for Critical Computational Studies (C3S)
IKB building, 2nd floor

Guest Speakers:

Daniel Mügge, Professor for Political Economy and Transnational Governance at University of Amsterdam

Wulf Loh, Research Group Leader Ethics of AI & Robots, University of Tübingen

 

Registration here.

 

Empirical Ethics Publications

Paula Helm, Beatrice Bonami, Roanne van Voorst, Adriano da Silva (2026): Introduction. Crafting Alternative Futures through Mutual Learning. In: Beatrice Bonami, Paula Helm, Roanne van Voorst, Adriano da Silva (eds.): Reimagining Knowledge in the Amazon Rainforest. Crafting Alternative Futures. Leuven University Press.

Selin Gerlek, Paula Helm (2026): Matters of Concern. Modes of Inquiry. On the Formation of Empirical Ethics. On the Formation of Empirical Ethics, in: Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Studies Anniversary Edition.

Paula Helm (2026). Privacy in the Age of Platform Capitalism: What is at Stake for Individuals, Groups and Democracy? Oxford Encyclopedia of Science and Technology Studies. Oxford University Press.

Paula Helm & Selin Gerlek (2026). EMPIRICAL AI ETHICS. Relationality, Care, Transformation, Cambridge Forum on AI, Cambridge University Press (under review).

Benjamin Lipp, Paula Helm, Athanasios Karafillidis & Roser Pujadas (2025). De-centring the interface. Towards the integrated study of interfacial relations. Information, Communication & Society, 0(0), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2024.2413110

Paula Helm (2024). How platform power undermines diversity-oriented innovation. Internet Policy Review, 13(2). Special Issue (Ed. Thomas Poell, Jose van Dijck, Robyn Caplan, David Nieborg): Theorizing and Locating Platform Power. https://doi.org/10.14763/2024.2.1780

Paula Helm, Benjamin Lipp & Roser Pujadas (2024). Generating Reality, Silencing Debate. Synthetic Data as Discursive Device. Big Data & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951724124944

Paula Helm, Gábor Bella, Gertraud Koch & Fausto Giunchiglia (2024): Language Technology and Diversity. How Language Modelling Bias Causes Epistemic Injustice. Ethics Inf Technol 26, 8 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-023-09742-6

Gertraud Koch, Gábor Bella, Paula Helm & Fausto Giunchiglia (2024): Layers of Technology in Pluriversal Design. Decolonising AI Language Technology with the Live Language Initiative. Journal for Co-Design, https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2405.01783.

Gábor Bella, Paula Helm, Gertraud Koch & Fausto Giunchiglia. (2024). Tackling Language Modelling Bias in Support of Linguistic Diversity. In The 2024 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT ’24), June 03–06, 2024, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. ACM, New York, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.1145/3630106.3658925

Paula Helm & Tobias Matzner (2024). Co-addictive human–machine configurations: Relating critical design and algorithm studies to medical-psychiatric research on “problematic Internet use”. New Media & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231165916

Paula Helm, Amalia De Götzen, Luca Cernuzzi, Salvador Ruiz Correa, Shyam Diwakar & Daniel Gatica-Perez (2023). Diversity and Neocolonialism in Big Data Research. Big Data & Society.  https://doi.org/10.1177/205395172312068

Beatrice Bonami, Nazialo Filizola, Adriano da Silva, Marina Magalhães, Joao Sateré, Josias Sateré, Roanne van Voorst & Paula Helm (2023). Water and Technologies - Community Material for Water and Digital Sustainability in the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest. https://doi.org/10.0001/99769.

Paula Helm, Loizos Michael & Laura Schelenz (2022): Diversity by Design? Balancing the Protection and Inclusion of Users in Online Social Networks, in: Proceedings of the 2022 AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society, Oxford, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.1145/3514094.3534149

Maximilian Fischer, Simon Hirsbrunner, …, Daniel Keim & Paula Helm (2022): Promoting Ethical Awareness in Communication Analysis: Investigating Potentials and Limits of Visual Analytics, in: Proceedings of the 2022 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability and Transparency, Seoul, South Korea. https://doi.org/10.1145/3531146.3533151

Paula Helm & Thilo Hagendorff (2021): Beyond the Prediction Paradigm. Chances and Risks of AI for Criminal Investigation, in: Luciano Floridi, Jeff Ward, Cynthia Rudin (eds.): Artificial Intelligence and the Rule of Law. 84 Duke Law and Contemporary Problems. Duke University Press, 1--17.

Paula Helm (2020): Longing for a Selfless Self and other Ambivalences of Anonymity, in: Anon Collective (ed.): Book of Anonymity. Earth/Milky Way: Punctum Books: 401-423.

Paula Helm (2018): Treating Sensitive Topics Online. A Privacy Dilemma, Ethics & Information Technology, 20(4): 303-313. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-018-9482-4

Paula Helm (2017): Suchtkultur und Gruppentherapie. Vom anonymen Ich zum anonymen Wir, Wiesbaden: Springer VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.

Teaching

SS 2026:

  • MA STS & Computer Science: If-Then-But-Why (in collaboration with Martina Klausner)
  • MA Sociology & STS: Machine Learning as Culture: Ethics and Politics of Large Scale Models
PhD and PostDoc opportunities

Join Our Team

We are looking for a 100% PostDoc-researcher from May onwards.

Feel free to contact us for more details.
Projects for Students

TBA