scienceofintelligence.de

Excellent Pub Quiz
2025-10-13 19:00 - 21:00 (Europe/Berlin) | Fahimi bar, Skalitzer Str. 133, Berlin, 10999, Germany
Dive into the wonderful world of research of the seven Berlin Clusters of Excellence: from literature to chemistry, from politics to AI, you and your team can find answers for exciting and surprising questions from the clusters’ research areas. So seek fellows and think of your team name!
Every quiz evening focuses on the research of one of the clusters of excellence with a related live performance, followed by questions from the areas of the rest of the clusters. At the end of the evening, you will be certainly smarter than before and perhpas with great prizes in your hands.
Event langage: German
Admission: Free entry
Capacity: Limited spaces, so come early to not miss your spot
Moderator: Jochen Müller

Schedule
6:00–7:00 PM: On-site registration
7:00–8:00 PM: Round 1
8:00–8:30 PM: Break
8:30–9:30 PM: Round 2

This event is organized by the Cluster of Excellence SCRIPTS.
The other participating clusters are: MATH+, Science of Intelligence, Temporal Communities, UniSysCat, Matters of Activity, and NeuroCure.

Anna Lange and Helene Ackermann (Science of Intelligence), “Adaptivity in Learner-Teacher Interaction”
2025-10-16 10:00 - 11:00 | SCIoI, Marchstraße 23, 10587 Berlin, Room 2.057
More details to follow.

Félicie Dhellemmes and Valerii Chirkov (Science of Intelligence), "Navigating the Explore-Exploit Trade Off in Collective Search"
2025-10-23 10:00 - 11:00 | SCIoI, Marchstraße 23, 10587 Berlin, Room 2.057
More details to follow.

Photo by Prince Patel on Unsplash.

Dimitri Coelho Mollo (Umeå University), "Functional Ontologies for AI systems: Tasks, Mechanisms, and Capacities"
2025-10-30 10:00 - 11:00 | SCIoI, Marchstraße 23, 10587 Berlin, Room 2.057
Abstract
The size and complexity of current Deep Artificial Neural Networks pose remarkable challenges to our attempts of explaining and understanding their workings. In this talk, I put forward a proposal for complementing existing efforts to that aim, inspired by research on cognitive ontology in philosophy of cognitive science. In particular, I suggest that, as much as we need theoretically and empirically grounded categories for cognitive tasks, cognitive capacities, and cognitive mechanisms in cognitive science, we need theoretically and empirically grounded categories for functional tasks, capacities and mechanisms when studying AI systems. The resulting functional ontologies, I argue, can play crucial roles in informing further research in explainable and interpretable AI, and in refining our understanding of such systems. I illustrate this proposal by examining recent research on the computational mechanisms underlying specific capacities in Large Language Models, showing how appeal to functional ontologies can further enrich such research.

Oliver Brock (Science of Intelligence), "Robotics and AI Will Never Feel the Same Again"
2025-10-30 14:15 - 15:45 | Marchstraße 23, 10587 Berlin, Room 2.057
The Robotics Institute Germany (RIG) offers weekly insights into current research work on robotics. In RIG’s weekly online lectures, leading robotics researchers present the latest developments, challenges, and visions and answer questions from the audience.
SCIoI spokesperson Oliver Brock will kick off the series with a talk about the future of robotics and AI. He will be available for questions after the lecture.
The event will take place in person and online: https://tu-berlin.zoom-x.de/j/63606623807?pwd=[REDACTED]
The series is part of a seminar for MSc and PhD students, while it is also open to anyone interested. Students who are interested in enrolling in the course can visit the TU-website.

Palina Bartashevich, Marten Kaas, Valerii Chirkov, Yunus Sevinchan, and Yating Zheng (Science of Intelligence), "What is Collective Intelligence?"
2025-11-06 10:30 - 12:00 | MAR Asimov Lab, Marchstrasse 23, Berlin, 10587, Germany
Abstract:
From ice fishers and marlins to robots, natural and artificial collectives show remarkable ways of making decisions together. Join us as we explore the collective mind! How do sardines escape the attacks of marlins – and how do marlins adapt their hunting strategies in return? What guides groups of hobby ice fishers in Finland as they decide where to drill the best fishing holes? And what can these real-world strategies teach us about building smarter artificial agents, like swarm robots?
In this exciting event, SCIoI computer scientist Palina Bartashevich will introduce the topic of collective intelligence, sharing drone footage and stories from her team’s expedition to the Mexican Atlantic, where they observed hunting marlins in action. Following her introduction, ethicist Marten Kaas will lead a lively discussion with scientists Valerii Chirkov, Yunus Sevinchan, and Yating Zheng on the most fascinating aspects of swarm intelligence in humans, animals and robots. It turns out that when groups share information and make decisions together, they can act much like a distributed brain, and that tells us a lot about collective minds in nature and technology — who would have thought?
Register by 5 November by emailing solveig.steinhardt@scioi.de.
Click here for more info.

The Science Slam
2025-11-06 19:00 - 22:00 | Roadrunner’s Paradise Saarbrücker Str. 24 10405 Berlin Germany
Amidst the excitement, one event stands out for its humor, heart, and energy: the Battle of the Brains: The Ultimate Science Slam Edition. This much-loved tradition, hosted by Berlin’s seven Clusters of Excellence (SCIoI, MATH+, UniSysCat, SCRIPTS, Neurocure, Temporal Communities, Matters of Activity) transforms complex research into lively and entertaining performances. Researchers bring their work to life with everything from costumes and props to experimental setups, vying for the audience’s applause and the coveted title of best science slammer. For Science of Intelligence (SCIoI), our member Anna Lange and Vito Mengers will join the stage and present their research.

Excellent Pub Quiz
2025-11-10 19:00 - 21:00 | Fahimi bar, Skalitzer Str. 133, Berlin, 10999, Germany
Dive into the wonderful world of research of the seven Berlin Clusters of Excellence: from literature to chemistry, from politics to AI, you and your team can find answers for exciting and surprising questions from the clusters’ research areas. So seek fellows and think of your team name!
Every quiz evening focuses on the research of one of the clusters of excellence with a related live performance, followed by questions from the areas of the rest of the clusters. At the end of the evening, you will be certainly smarter than before and perhpas with great prizes in your hands.
Event langage: German
Admission: Free entry
Capacity: Limited spaces, so come early to not miss your spot
Moderator: Jochen Müller
This event is organized by the Cluster of Excellence Science of Intelligence.
The other participating clusters are: MATH+, UniSysCat, Temporal Communities, SCRIPTS, Matters of Activity, and NeuroCure.

Elena Merdjanovska (Science of Intelligence), “Efficient Model Learning From Data With Partially Incorrect Labels: Learning From Noisy Labels”
2025-11-20 10:00 - 11:00 | SCIoI, Marchstraße 23, 10587 Berlin, Room 2.057
More details to follow.

Image created with DALL-E by Maria Ott.

Sole Traverso (Science of Intelligence), "Symmetry-aware Lifelong Bayesian Reinforcement Learning: Finding the Loo Faster"
2025-11-27 10:00 - 11:00 | SCIoI, Marchstraße 23, 10587 Berlin, Room 2.057

Benjamin Alt (Universität Bremen), "Hybrid AI for Safe Embodied Intelligence"
2025-11-28 10:00 - 23:00 | Marchstraße 23, 10587 Berlin, Room 2.057
Enabling robots to perform complex manipulation tasks in open-world environments requires approaches to intelligence that bridge the traditional divide between symbolic and subsymbolic systems. Hybrid systems that combine reasoning over symbolic knowledge with probabilistically approximately correct inference over probability distributions promise to make robot manipulation actions generalizable, interpretable, and scalable to address real-world challenges. This talk explores how hybrid AI systems can enable robots to become not just capable agents, but also safe colleagues and companions for humans.
Benjamin Alt is Technical Director at the AICOR Lab at University of Bremen. He is collaborating with RBO in the Robotics Institute Germany (RIG) Technical Committee (TC) called Manipulate Anything, Anywhere, Anytime (MA3).
This talk is a collaboration between the Robotics and Biology Laboratory (RBO), the Robotics Institute Germany (RIG) and Science of Intelligence.

POSTPONED: Arianna Novati (Science of Intelligence), "Mouse Lock Box 2.0"
2025-12-04 10:00 - 10:30 | SCIoI, Marchstraße 23, 10587 Berlin, Room 2.057
More details to follow.
©SCIoI/Katharina Hohlbaum, Arianna Novati

Hublet at SCIoI: Winter Conference of the Association For the Study of Animal Behavior (ASAB)
2025-12-15 10:15 - 2025-12-16 18:00 | Marchstraße 23, 10587 Berlin, Room 2.057
How does sensory information shape animal behaviour?
This year’s Winter Conference of the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour (ASAB) takes on one of the most intriguing questions in behavioural biology: how animals perceive, interpret, and act on information from their environment. From camouflage to communication, from primate foraging to the “linguistics” of animals, the meeting brings together cutting-edge research on sensory worlds across species.
For everyone in Berlin who cannot attend the conference in person but would still like to follow the talks and discuss them with others, the IGB and SCIoI is hosting a Hublet.
A Hublet is a local satellite gathering where the conference is streamed live, creating a shared space for learning, exchange, and spontaneous discussion. It’s an informal, community-driven way to experience the conference together, and a chance to connect with others interested in animal behavior, sensory systems, cognition, and beyond.
Attendance is free and open to all.
(Participation follows the ASAB Code of Conduct.)
Program @SCIoI
(Marchstraße 23, 10587 Berlin, Room 2.057 )
Monday and Tuesday
10:15am – 6pm
For the whole program, please visit the conference website (streamed at the Hublet). Please be aware that the conference program is U.K. time (CET -1).
Program Highlights
Monday
10:30 – Public Lecture: Innes Cuthill
Animal camouflage: evolutionary biology meets neuroscience, art and war
15:30 – Plenary 1: Amanda Melin
Multimodal foraging in wild sympatric primates
Tuesday
10:30 – Tinbergen Lecture: Toshitaka Suzuki
Animal linguistics
12:15 – Plenary 2: Barbara Caspers
Family affairs – the impact of chemical cues on bird social communication
About This Year’s Theme
“How sensory information affects behaviour”
The 2025 meeting explores how animals perceive their world, a topic famously challenged by philosopher Thomas Nagel’s question: What is it like to be a bat?
While we may never fully inhabit another species’ sensory perspective, understanding these sensory modalities is essential for interpreting behaviour. In an increasingly human-altered world, sensory systems face new challenges from noise, light pollution, artificial scents, and shifting magnetic environments. The conference investigates how these pressures shape decision-making, adaptation, and sometimes maladaptive outcomes.
Join the Berlin Hublet
Come watch the conference with fellow researchers, students, and anyone curious about animal behaviour. Whether you work in biology, robotics, psychology, philosophy, or simply enjoy learning about the natural world, you are warmly invited.

Vladislav Golyanik (MPI for Informatics), "Egocentric 4D Vision with Conventional and Event Cameras"
2026-01-20 10:00 - 11:00 | Marchstraße 23, 10587 Berlin, Room 2.057
4D computer vision using egocentric visual sensors on head-mounted devices (such as Aria glasses) is gaining momentum. While substantial progress has been made in recent years, various open challenges remain in the field, including robust 3D human and hand pose estimation from egocentric cameras, optimal egocentric camera placement, real-time processing, and fulfilling ergonomic and power consumption constraints of mobile devices. This talk will focus on several projects on egocentric 4D vision conducted by and with contributions from the 4D and Quantum Vision (4DQV) research group (MPI for Informatics). We will investigate how modern computer graphics rendering tools can be leveraged for synthetic training data generation, and discuss, among other points, the increasing role of event cameras in egocentric vision. The talk will also provide an overview of other ongoing research directions at 4DQV.
Bio:
Vladislav Golyanik is a senior researcher leading the “4D and Quantum Vision” research group at the Visual Computing and Artificial Intelligence (VCAI) Department of MPI for Informatics. He is also a lecturer at Saarland University. Vladislav’s primary research interests include 3D reconstruction and neural rendering of deformable scenes, 4D generative models and quantum-enhanced computer vision (QeCV). He received a doctoral degree in Computer Science from the University of Kaiserslautern in 2019.

Girls' Day
2026-04-23 08:00 - 17:00
What is intelligence, and how can research help improve current technologies with new insights? At Girls’ Day with the Cluster of Excellence Science of Intelligence, you’ll discover how scientists from many different disciplines explore the topic of intelligence.
You’ll paint pictures with your eyes, chat with a robot, learn how to teach robots new skills, program your own code, and catch a virtual school of fish!
This way, you’ll be right in the middle of the action, exploring alongside researchers how intelligence can be understood from different perspectives. Experience firsthand how intelligent robots work and the diverse approaches scientists use to study intelligence.
To take part in our program, you should be between 10 and 15 years old.
Stay tuned for more information.
