Speech assistants take orders, social bots influence online debates and machines generate texts. Communicative AI is emerging as a new actor in communication, transforming how information is created and shared, how we communicate with one another, and how public discourse takes shape.
In the research unit “Communicative AI. The Automation of Social Communication” researchers in Germany and Austria are investigating how societal communication changes when communicative AI becomes part of it.
This BredowCast feature accompanies the ComAI Summer Retreat and the subsequent Summer School at the Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut (HBI) in Hamburg. Here, the researchers from all nine projects come together to exchange ideas, forge cross-project connections, and further develop their skills.
The English-language episode introduces selected projects and their research questions and explores the different perspectives they bring to the study of Communicative AI.
The ComAI research group is coordinated by the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (Prof. Dr. Andreas Hepp) and the Leibniz Institute for Media Research I Hans-Bredow-Institut (Prof. Dr. Wiebke Loosen). Leading researchers from the fields of communication and media studies, human-computer interaction, sociology of knowledge, governance research, and media law are involved.
The German Research Foundation (DFG) is funding the research unit during an initial funding phase from 2025 to 2028.
The AI voice “Thomas” was generated by the platform elevenlabs.io.
Links
- ComAI Research Unit: https://comai.space/
- BredowCast (in German) on AI and Journalism: https://leibniz-hbi.de/podcast/wie-eignet-sich-der-journalismus-ki-an/