03.12.2025
Symposium: Teaming Up with Generative AI: From Tool Use to Partnership
Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Dresden, Germany, 25-26 March 2026
For detailed information about the call for contributions, registration, the full programme and other information, please visit our symposium website: https://theansweringmachine.de/impact-2/symposium/
Overview:
The emergence of generative AI (GenAI) marks a pivotal transformation in the human–technology nexus — a shift as profound as the printing press at the dawn of modernity. We may be witnessing not the end of Humanism, but the beginning of a new era in which GenAI expands access to knowledge, enables translingual dialogue, amplifies reasoning, and fosters new forms of collaboration. But as with all transformative technologies, such potential must be intentionally shaped. Just as the printing press became a vehicle for rational discourse only through active engagement by cultural, intellectual, and political actors, so too must GenAI be guided toward humanistic, ethical, and democratic ends.
The interdisciplinary project The Answering Machine, funded by the Volkswagen Foundation, invites you to its concluding symposium that explores how generative AI might enrich rather than erode the cognitive, emotional, creative, and social capacities that define human flourishing. Rather than capitulating to narratives of disruption or decline, this gathering offers a space for interdisciplinary reflection and constructive imagination. In line with our project’s vision, The Answering Machine seeks to chart a course in which GenAI is not merely a tool, but a partner in the ever-changing project of Humanism — attuned to the complexities of the human condition and committed to the pursuit of shared progress.
At the heart of our conversation lie the following questions. These discussions will be enriched by a series of performances in which actors interact with GenAI on stage.
- In what ways can generative AI, appearing as social agents, help to shape a shared future that strengthens rather than diminishes human capabilities?
- What does co-creating with generative AI look like in practice, and how can this collaboration strengthen human agency and creativity?
- How can generative AI support the co-construction of knowledge and competencies, and how might this transform learning processes and critical-thinking skills?
- Which risks and challenges arise when integrating generative AI in education, healthcare, performing arts and other societal domains?
Call for Contributions:
We welcome you to submit a poster or an artistic/scientific contribution to be presented at the Human-AI-Interaction Playground. The Playground is an interactive event similar to a poster session, but it invites contributors to showcase their experimental setups, prototypes, and live interaction scenarios, giving participants the opportunity to try them out and engage in discussion.
Submissions are open from November 1, 2025, to January 7, 2026.
The symposium will be held in English. For any questions, please contact answeringmachine@tu-dresden.de.