The TALOS-AI4SSH project: Expanding research and innovation … – Innovation News Network

The TALOS-AI4SSH project is setting up a Centre of Excellence in Digital Humanities at the University of Crete, Greece.

The TALOS-Artificial Intelligence for Humanities and Social Sciences (TALOS-AI4SSH) project gets its name from ancient Greek mythology. Talos was an ancient bronze giant whose mission was to protect Crete from pirates. Nowadays, Talos is usually considered the symbol of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The TALOS-AI4SSH project received 2.5m in funding from the European Commission (HORIZON-WIDERA-2022-TALENTS-01-01-ERA Chairs) in order to set up a Centre of Excellence in Digital Humanities at the University of Crete, Greece.

The new centre will be integrated at the University of Crete Research Centre (UCRC) for the Humanities, the Social and Education Sciences.

Established in 1978, the University of Crete (UoC), ranked among the top Greek universities, is a young public educational institution sited in a region rich in ancient and modern Mediterranean cultures.

Currently, around 20,000 undergraduate and graduate students study at the UoC, at the Schools of Philosophy, Education, Social Sciences, Sciences & Technology, and Medicine. They are taught by outward-looking academic staff committed to quality in teaching, research, and community partnerships.

The UoC is the only Greek University, to date, that has been awarded with the HR Excellence in Research logo.

The objectives set by the TALOS-AI4SSH project align with the EU Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) integration and digital agenda.

The project will expand the research and innovation potential, generate new knowledge, strengthen innovation and knowledge transfer activities, create industry-driven projects, and build capacity through combined academic-industry training.

In close collaboration with local and global industry partners, the TALOS-AI4SSH project will support SSH-informed evidence-based AI policymaking, develop key combined digital SSH competencies, and produce interdisciplinary solutions to both societal and technological AI issues.

The vision of the TALOS-AI4SSH project is to train a new generation of hybrid scholars who will combine knowledge and skills from both the humanities and computer science sectors.

A vision is needed for new educational curricula, combining knowledge from the humanities, the social sciences, and engineering studies. Education on computer science /informatics and its societal impact must start as early as possible. Students should learn to combine information-technology skills with awareness of the ethical and societal issues at stake. (Vienna Manifesto on Digital Humanities)

The traditional separation between humanities, arts, social sciences and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) is not suitable for the needs of the digital age. Artificial Intelligence is not a STEM discipline. It is in essence trans-disciplinary and requires a spectrum of capabilities that is not covered by current education curricula. It is urgent to redesign studies. This also gives a unique opportunity to truly achieve inclusion and diversity across academic fields. (V. Dignum, Responsible AI)

TALOS mission focuses on the need for AI that is reflective about the nature of intelligence and humanity. It also addresses the requirement for SSH that is transformative and embraces the methodological advances of AI to generate innovation and impact.

TALOS will combine the strengths of neural networks with symbolic reasoning to create a scalable, sustainable, and explainable representation of knowledge in the humanities and the social sciences.

The TALOS-AI4SSH project was selected for funding in the HORIZON-WIDERA call ERA Chairs. This programme aims to help universities to promote structural changes and to achieve excellence on a sustainable basis.

This is done under the guidance of a prominent researcher. The ERA Chair Professor then sets up a team and undertakes tasks, such as supervision, research, teaching etc., that contribute to the educational and research upgrading of the host institution.

Christophe Roche is the ERA chair holder at the University of Crete. He is a Professor in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Savoie Mont-Blanc (France), a special appointment Professor at the University of Liaocheng (China, National Talent), and Head of the Condillac research group (France), and KETRC Lab (China).

He started his career in the private research sector in Artificial Intelligence (Paris) and taught in Switzerland (Neuchatel) and in Paris for over ten years (INALCO, Paris Dauphine). He was researcher and lecturer at the University Nova of Lisbon (2009-2022).

His domains of interest are knowledge engineering (ontology), linguistics (terminology), digital humanities and the semantic web.

In 2007, he created the TOTh international conference on terminology and ontology, which he has been organising every year since, also chairing its scientific committee. He also chairs the terminology committee of AFNOR (Paris) in relation with ISO.

Roche has set up and participated in 14 international projects, including ten EU-funded projects. He has set up PhD courses and summer schools in France, Portugal, and China in Artificial Intelligence, linguistics, and digital humanities.

Since March 2023, Professor Roche has joined the Department of Philology of the UoC on a five-year contract.

The TALOS-AI4SSH project is setting up a Centre of Excellence in Digital Humanities. The activities of the new centre are being directed by Professor Roche and include:

The TALOS-AI4SSH project is expected to have a significant impact in the following areas:

The project is designed to:

The key research topics are:

1. Semantic annotation of texts; 2. Classifying and naming objects; 3. Pattern recognition in literary/journalistic corpora; 4. Digitisation and datafication of education; 5. Hybrid AI-NLP Software for SSH; and 6. Standards for SSH.

The TALOS-AI4SSH Project is funded by the Horizon Europe Programme under grant agreement No. 101087269.

Please note, this article will also appear in the fifteenthedition of ourquarterly publication.

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