MediaFutures

Bias in Hate Speech Detection: Challenges and Solutions
2024-12-12 11:15 - 12:00 (Europe/Oslo) | SFI MediaFutures, MCB
SFI MediaFutures invites to a seminar on bias in hate speech detection hold by Debora Nozza, on 12 of December in our office in Bergen.
Abstract:
Online hate speech is on the rise, often leading to offline harm. While NLP methods, including LLMs, offer tools for detection, fine-tuning these models can introduce severe unintended bias—performing inconsistently across comments involving specific identity terms (e.g., gay, Muslim, woman). This talk explores the risks of deploying off-the-shelf classifiers, methods for measuring and mitigating bias, and the ongoing challenge of balancing effective hate speech detection with fairness in online spaces.
Bio:
Debora Nozza is an Assistant Professor in Computing Sciences at Bocconi University. Her research interests mainly focus on Natural Language Processing, specifically on the detection and counter-acting of hate speech and algorithmic bias on Social Media data in multilingual context. She was recently awarded a €1.5m ERC Starting Grant project 2023 for research on personalized and subjective approaches to Natural Language Processing.
The event is free of charge.
If you want to join online, please open the following link: https://uib.zoom.us/j/64083511296?pwd=[REDACTED]

Opphavsrett for journalister – Hva du må vite om bruk og deling av innhold?
2025-03-06 12:00 - 17:00 | Media City Bergen, Medielaben i 9. etasje, tårn 3
Hva kan du bruke fritt, og hva krever tillatelse? Hva gjelder for lenking, embedding og bruk av innhold fra sosiale medier? Hvordan påvirker kunstig intelligens opphavsretten?
Bli med på en hands-on workshop med advokat Jon Wessel-Aas, en av Norges fremste eksperter på medierett. Her får du konkrete svar på de viktigste spørsmålene om opphavsrett – skreddersydd for journalister.

AI anno 2030: In the Public Interest?
2025-03-07 09:30 - 15:00 | Universitetsaulaen, Muséplassen 3
UiB AI is collaborating with NORA on a CuttingEdgeAI seminar in the University Aula in Bergen. The idea behind the seminar is to bring together some of the foremost AI researchers in Norway to discuss where we stand in terms of research, which areas Norway has the opportunity to make its mark on and what might happen on the AI front in the future. Where will the research front be in different branches of artificial intelligence in five years’ time? And does AI represent the public interest, for example when it comes to democracy, labour, welfare, the environment and culture? The seminar is mostly in Norwegian.

The seminar will be streamed, and the recording will be available through a link.
Program:
09:00 Arrival and light refreshments09:30 Welcome by Pro-Rector Pinar Heggernes, Pro-Rector at UiB and Chair of the UiB AI Steering Group
Part 1: Where is the research front in various branches of artificial intelligence headed?
09:40 AI research in Norway in 2025: Anne Kjersti Fahlvik, Director of Innovation in Business and the Public Sector, Research Council of Norway
10:00 Arnoldo Frigessi, Professor and Director of the Center of Excellence (SFF) Integreat, UiO10:15 Jill Walker Rettberg, Professor and Deputy Director of the Center of Excellence for Digital Narratives, UiB
10:30 Coffee break
11:00 Robert Jenssen, Professor and Director of the Center for Research-based Innovation (SFI) Visual Intelligence, UiT – The Arctic University of Norway11:15 Panel discussion with Anne Kjersti, Arnoldo, Jill, and Robert, moderated by Pinar Heggernes, Pro-Rector, UiB
11:45 Lunch
Part 2: Where does Norway have particular strengths in AI research?
12:30 AI at NAV – What are we doing, and what are we wondering about?Jon Vegard Sparre, AI Lead at NAV
12:45 Heri Ramampiaro, Professor and Head of the Department of Computer Science, NTNU13:00 Marija Slavkovik, Professor and Head of the Department of Information Science and Media Studies, UiB
13:15 Coffee break
13:45 AI and regulation: From Norwegian marketing to research qualityMalcolm Langford, Professor at the Department of Public and International Law, UiO
14:00 Panel discussion with Jon Vegard, Heri, Marija, and Malcolm, moderated by Klas Pettersen, CEO of NORA
14:30 Food and networking15:00 Farewell
Moderator for the day: Dag Stenvoll, Coordinator for UiB AI

The Language of Coordination: From Humans to AI Agents
2025-03-21 12:00 - 13:30 | SFI MediaFutures, MCB
We are thrilled to welcome Luca Maria Aiello, Associate Professor at the IT University of Copenhagen, to the MediaFutures seminar series.
As global challenges like climate change, pandemics, and mass migration become increasingly urgent, the need for mass coordination has never been greater. In his presentation, “The Language of Coordination: From Humans to AI Agents,” Professor Aiello will delve into the fascinating intersection of social science, language, and technology, exploring how natural language can drive large-scale coordination in the public sphere. Drawing on his cutting-edge research, he will demonstrate how insights from psychology and linguistics can be harnessed to understand and predict collective behavior, and how these insights can be applied to artificial intelligence to create persuasive social agents capable of influencing public discourse on social media platforms.
Abstract:
A defining task for humankind is to achieve mass coordination to tackle global challenges such as climate change, pandemics, and mass migrations. Social science research has identified psycho-linguistic aspects of social interactions that can trigger spontaneous coordination when used strategically in the public debate. We created Natural Language Processing tools that can capture these social dimensions from conversations, and found that they can explain and predict outcome of consensus and coordination. Furthermore, we show that these dimensions can be used to prompt AI agents powered by Large Language Models to make them behave as persuasive social agents that could be seamlessly integrated in the public discourse of social media platforms.
Professor Aiello’s work is at the forefront of an emerging field that combines computational social science, network science, and artificial intelligence. By analyzing vast amounts of digital data, he seeks to quantify human well-being and build systems that can improve it—whether in the context of health, urban living, or digital interactions. In his talk, he will explore the psycho-linguistic aspects of human interaction and how they can be translated into actionable insights for both human and AI-driven coordination.
Professor Aiello will be visiting Bergen and the MediaFutures research center from March 19th to 22nd, with his presentation scheduled for Friday, March 21st. We encourage you to join us for this insightful seminar, either in person or via the Zoom livestream.

About Luca Maria Aiello
Luca Maria Aiello is an Associate Professor at the IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark, where he conducts interdisciplinary research at the intersection of computational social science, digital health, network science, and urban informatics. His work leverages large-scale digital data to explore and quantify key aspects of human life, with a particular focus on how language and communication shape our collective behaviors and well-being.
His research interests span multiple fields, including the role of language in coordinating social actions, the application of Natural Language Processing (NLP) to study social dynamics, and the development of AI systems that can influence and improve social interactions. Through his research, Professor Aiello aims to better understand how people interact, how these interactions can be optimized to address pressing global issues, and how AI can be used to augment, rather than replace, human communication.
A recognized leader in his field, Professor Aiello has contributed to numerous influential studies on the role of language in social media and digital interactions. One of his notable contributions includes a study published in Nature on the language of persuasion in social media, which explores how certain linguistic features can be used to influence public opinion and behavior.
Currently, his research focuses on using NLP techniques to quantify social and psychological experiences, with applications ranging from improving public health to enhancing urban living environments. Through his work, Professor Aiello continues to push the boundaries of what is possible at the intersection of social science and technology.

Trust and trustworthiness: The Rhetorical History of Trust in the Nordics
2025-05-19 11:00 - 16:00 | University of Bergen, Lauritz Meltzers hus (SV-bygget), Room: Vesletinget (Floor 2)
With talks by some of the best national and international researchers in trust and trustworthiness, this seminar explores trust as a historical, societal, and rhetorical phenomenon.
What is trust and trustworthiness in a rhetorical perspective? Can we talk about cultures of trust? What is a culture of trust? How does trust develop historically, and how do digital cultures influence trust and trustworthiness? Furthermore, how may we theoretically account for rhetorical trust and methodologically explore it?
This open and free seminar explores such questions. The seminar is organized by the research project “Trustworthiness: The Rhetorical History of Trust in the Nordics”.
The project examines why the Nordics are consistently among the world’s most trusting countries and explores how this trust is used to explain the stability, prosperity, and even happiness of the citizens in the Nordic countries.
Today, however, a wide range of factors threaten to overturn Nordic people’s propensity to trust each other, including an increasingly fragmented media landscape, as well as a more conflictual political atmosphere.
The renowned speakers in this open and free seminar addressees such issues of trust and trustworthiness.
Program
11.00-11.05: Welcome
11.05-11.25: The working group on Trustworthiness in the Nordic Countries: “Rhetorical trust”
11:25-12.25: Ute Frevert (Max Planck Institute): “Rhetorics and Politics of Trust in Modern Societies – A Historian’s Perspective”
The talk asks why modern societies care about trusting relations? What do they need trust for? What kind of work does trust do? Is trust synonymous with calculativeness, or does it go beyond an instrumental attitude? How do political systems – democratic and non-democratic handle trust?
12.25-13.00: Lunch
13.00-14.00: Helge Skirbekk (Oslo Met): “The historical development of Trust in Norway”
Norway is still characterised by high levels of trust, both in general and in public institutions. Why is this so, and why did it become so? In what is referred to as the Nordic model, there are several things that distinguish Norway from other Western countries. Among these are the high degree of labour organisation, the relatively small income differences, and the large extent of the public sector and the high level of taxes. But the high levels of trust cannot be understood without examining the relatively peaceful historical interactions between elites and population. Belonging to networks built on civic engagement can strengthen norms of mutual trust. I will investigate the emergence of unions and lay organisations, and their interplay with political elites in order to find an answer to this question.
14.00-14.45: Dag Wollebæk (Institute of Social Research): “Trust as sacred rhetoric”
In Norway, trust has become a foundational element of the national self-image. In public discourse, trust is often framed not merely as a strength, but as a sacred value: a non-negotiable, inviolable resource that must be protected at all costs. Drawing on the concept of sacred rhetoric (Marietta, 2008), I argue that the way we talk about trust affects political debate and institutional accountability in profound ways. Sacred rhetoric shifts public argumentation from the weighing of evidence and compromise to the invocation of moral absolutes, the discouragement of criticism, and the protection of power. While this rhetoric may encourage compliance and cooperation, it undermines deliberation and weakens critical vigilance. In this keynote, I examine how the rhetorical sacralization of trust affects democratic discourse in Norway. I argue that desacralizing the rhetoric of trust and shifting the focus from preserving trust to deserving trust would be desirable — to cultivate a political culture where institutions are not shielded by sacred narratives, but held accountable through reasoned scrutiny.
14.45-15.00 Break
15.00-15.30: Esther Oluffa Pedersen (Roskilde University): The Digital Society and Trust
Increasing digitalization raises the question how digital technologies influence relations of trust. This calls for an empirical and conceptual approach. Conceptually I argue that trust evolves between humans but is anchored within the individuals encountering each other with either trust or distrust. Affective and epistemic attitudes of trust or distrust are influenced by the individual’s prior experiences (e.g. betrayals of trust) and future goals (e.g. goals’ dependency on collaboration). Besides interpersonal relations trust also unfolds in institutional trust, trust in oneself and trust in technology. Thriving interpersonal and institutional trust are characterized by mutual assessments of trustworthiness and thus by reciprocity. Trust in technology is different as the non-agential technology does not reciprocate. Many argue that we do not trust but simply rely on technology. It is, however, an empirical fact that the other trust relations are influenced by digital technologies. I will exemplify this with the case of the Danish tax authorities’ fully automated property assessments. The property assessments were digitalized with the explicit ambition to recreate trust in the system of property taxation. Besides exceeding the budget, and as until now not completely implemented, the system has also been sending erroneous assessments out to the citizens.
15.30-16.00: Panel with presenters: How to study trust rhetorically and historically.
Would you to attend the seminar? Please send an email to: Olivia.Akerholm@student.uib.no

Boosting User Trust to Increase the Uptake of Recommendations
2025-06-06 12:30 - 13:30 | SFI MediaFutures, MCB
We’re excited to welcome Professor Shlomo Berkovsky to MediaFutures for a special guest talk on June 6! Professor Berkovsky leads the Clinical AI and Sensing Technologies research stream at the Centre for Health Informatics, Macquarie University. His work explores the intersection of AI, health, and media technologies, including research on food recommender systems and user trust in recommendation interfaces.
Abstract of the talk:
The level of trust a user places in a recommender is crucial to the success of recommendations. Although prior work established factors that build and sustain user trust, their comparative power and impact on the uptake of recommendations received less attention. We conducted a user study examining the impact of various recommendation interfaces and content selection strategies on user trust. Following this, we conducted another study that evaluated the impact of including proponents (people or avatars) in the recommendation interface. We will discuss these results and implications on use and misuse in future recommendation interfaces.
About the Speaker:
Shlomo Berkovsky is the leader of the Interactive Medical AI research stream at Macquarie University. The stream focuses on the use of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning methods to develop usable patient models and personalised predictions of diagnosis and care. The stream also studies how clinicians and patients interact with health technologies and how Large Language Models can improve patient care. His other areas of expertise include user modelling, online personalisation, and behaviour change technologies.
We’ll meet you at 12:25 in the atrium of Media City Bergen and take you up to the MediaFutures office on the 3rd floor together.
Food will be served!
If you cannot join in person, you can follow the presentation on zoom by clicking here: https://uib.zoom.us/j/65067583768?pwd=[REDACTED]

fAIrgov-sluttkonferanse
2025-06-12 09:00 - 12:00 | Lillesalen, Kulturhuset i Bergen Vaskerelven 8, 5014 Bergen
Artificial intelligence is often described as the electricity of our time, and its development is accelerating. But what does this mean for the public sector, and what is needed to maintain public trust?

Public Fairness Perceptions of Algorithmic Governance (fAIrgov) is a research project at NORCE that, since 2018, has been exploring Norwegian attitudes toward the use of AI in the public sector. They now invite you to their final conference: a morning of reflections, insights, and discussion, featuring contributions from both researchers and public sector representatives.
Both academic and administrative staff at the Department of Information Science and Media Studies are welcome to attend the conference!
Registration form(Limited number of seats!)
Details of the fAIrgov Final Conference:

Date: June 12
Time: 09:00–12:00
Venue: Lillesalen, Kulturhuset i Bergen, Vaskerelven 8, 5014 Bergen
Afterwards: Lunch and informal research meetups from 12:00–14:00

Preliminary Program:

09:00–09:30 – Doors open, coffee and mingling
09:30–09:45 – Opening remarks by Camilla Stoltenberg
09:45–10:05 – Case: AI in the Norwegian Tax Administration, by Nina Serdarevic
10:05–10:25 – Case: AI in NAV (Labour and Welfare Administration), by Robindra Prabhu
10:25–10:45 – Break
10:45–11:05 – Public support for AI, by Mikael Poul Johannesson, NORCE
11:05–11:50 – Panel debate: What does it take for the Norwegian public sector to be ready for the AI revolution?– with Camilla Stoltenberg, Annette Fagerhaug Stephansen, Sveinung Arnesen, Nina Serdarevic, Robindra Prabhu
11:50–12:00 – Closing remarks by Sveinung Arnesen, fAIrgov project leader
12:00–14:00 – Lunch and informal networking with researchers

The conference is free and open to everyone. It is particularly relevant for public sector employees, researchers, policymakers – and anyone curious about how AI might transform the public sector and affect us as citizens.
Follow the event Is the Norwegian Public Sector Ready for the AI Revolution? on Facebook for updates and a link to the livestream if you’d like to attend digitally.

CANCELLED: MediaFutures Lunch seminar with Assistant Professor Jeremy Barnes
2025-09-01 12:00 - 13:00 | SFI MediaFutures, MCB
Dear all,
The upcoming seminar with Jeremy Barnes is cancelled. Unfortunately, our invited guest has fallen ill and is unable to travel to Bergen to join us. We were very much looking forward to the discussions and insights he was planning to share, and we hope to reschedule his visit at a later date. Thank you all for your interest in the seminars, and I hope to see you at other future events. Have a great week!

WP5 invites to a MediaFutures lunch seminar with Assistant Professor Jeremy Barnes, IXA Taldea / HiTZ Zentroa, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU).

Tittel: Challenges for automatic summarization evaluation in low-resource languages

Abstract:
In this talk, I will describe a transferable methodology for determining how effective available metrics are at identifying quality differences in automatic news summary quality in Basque and Spanish. After collecting a metevaluation dataset (BASSE) to evaluate five criteria (coherence, consistency, fluency, relevance, and 5W1H), we benchmark how well automatic evaluation metrics and LLM judges are able to capture differences in these criteria. Our results suggest that proprietary LLM judge models currently give the most consistent results across criteria, while a careful combination of automatic metrics can give similar results.

The event will also be streamed. Click here to join digitally: https://uib.zoom.us/j/65787045468?pwd=[REDACTED]

UiB AI #16 Trustworthy AI
2025-09-02 09:00 - 12:00 | Storsalen, Nygårdsgaten 5 (første etasje)
Over the past decade, artificial intelligence has achieved major technological breakthroughs and has become part of research, education and working life. However, for AI to gain widespread acceptance in society, it is crucial that the systems that use artificial intelligence are reliable. Today’s AI systems lack scientific definitions and clear criteria for values such as fairness, responsibility, security, privacy and other important ethical aspects. There are also serious weaknesses in the legal frameworks within which AI systems operate, as well as problems with the accuracy and robustness of the systems.
To address these challenges and strengthen high-quality AI research at UiB, the Trond Mohn Research Foundation (TMF) and the University of Bergen have developed and co-financed the Trustworthy AI research programme. This seminar will present insights from this research programme.
The seminar is held in English.
PROGRAMME
09:00 Coffee/tea and mingling
09:15 Welcome and today’s programme. TBC
09:20 “The Trustworthy AI research programme”. NN, Trond Mohn Research Foundation & Barbara Wasson, TAIS
09:35 “Algorithmic Foundations of Trustworthy AI”. Fedor Fomin from the Department of Informatics, UiB & Thomas Ågotnes, Department of Information Science & Media Studies
09:55 “”TRUSTworthy AI models to predict progression to complications in patients with Diabetes”. Valeriya Lyssenko from the Mohn Research Center for Diabetes Precision Medicine, UiB & Iain Johnston, Department of Mathematics
10:15 Break and coffee
10:30 “Artificial Intelligence in Education: Layers of Trust”, Barbara Wasson & Fride Klykken, Centre for the Science of Learning & Technology (SLATE) & Alessia Di Muro, Faculty of Law
10:50 “PANEL “Conceptions of Trust & Trustworthy AI”, Participants TBD, Barbara Wasson (moderator)
11:15 Discussion
11:30ish Light lunch and mingling
Moderator: Dag Stenvoll, coordinator of UiB AI

Talks by Google Deepmind researcher
2025-10-22 09:15 - 14:00 | UiB Bergen, Norway
SFI MediaFutures hosts two talks with Google Deepmind researcher Nitesh Goyal, invited and introduced by work package 4 co-leader professor Morten Fjeld.
Tesh (Nitesh) Goyal leads research at the intersection of AI and Safety at Google Deepmind. His work at Google has led to the launch of ML based tools like SynthID to enable AI Literacy, AIStudio and MakerSuite to enable creatives for leveraging AI to bring their ideas to life, Harassment Manager to empower targets of online harassment, ML based moderation to reduce online toxic content production on platforms like OpenWeb, and multiple NLP based tools that reduce biased sensemaking. He received his MSc in Computer Science from UC, Berkeley and RWTH Aachen, prior to receiving his PhD from Cornell University in Information Science. His research has been supported by the German Govt., and National Science Foundation. Frequently collaborating with industry (Google Research, Yahoo Labs, HP Labs, Bloomberg Labs), he has published in top-tier HCI venues (eg. CHI, CSCW, FAccT), received three best paper honorable mention awards (CHI, CSCW) and his work is frequently covered in the press. Tesh also serves on the ACM SIGCHI Steering Committee, as appointed Adjunct Professor at New York University and Columbia University, and as ACM Distinguished Speaker.

Talk 1: Wednesday 22 October 09:15 – 10:00 : Designing AI Responsibly | Case Studies from Practice
Location: Egget/UiB Auditorium
As an HCI Researcher, my work pushes boundaries for inclusive AI/ML models. In this talk I will share case studies about building these models and challenges in their large scale adoption. Some of these models are commonly used to detect toxicity in online conversations. These models are trained on datasets annotated by human raters and require relatively large datasets. In the first case study, I will explore how raters’ self-described identities impact how they annotate toxicity in online comments. In a second case study, I will share how our collective scholarship presents a gap at evaluating Responsible AI tools that inspect such AI/ML models. I will end with recommendations for an inclusive and equitable RAI practice.

Talk 2: Wednesday 22 October 13:00- 14:00 : Designing for Sensemaking Translucence | A Crime-Solving Case Study
Location: Room Stortinget, UiB
Solving crimes correctly is a critical and life-altering problem where intelligence analysts are constantly struggling against their biases. Despite recurring themes of how AI should be designed responsibly to support these use cases/users in 50+ years of scholarship, we have barely started to scratch the surface. In this lecture, I introduce the notion of Sensemaking Translucence into biases, fairness and equity related challenges. I then provide examples of how AI can support Sensemaking Translucence. My work finally makes the case that it is important to design from a human centered perspective by leveraging AI to support these Human AI Collaboration workflows.
For questions please contact: Morten.Fjeld@uib.no

Beyond Accuracy: Exploring Fairness and Generative AI in (News) Recommender Systems
2025-10-24 12:00 - 13:00 | SFI MediaFutures, MCB
We want to invite to a lunch seminar with Thomas E. Kolb, PhD candidate from TU Wien (Austria) and member of the CDL-RecSys.
Thomas is visiting MediaFutures for two months (until November 14) as part of an Erasmus traineeship. His research focuses on news recommender systems, particularly on fairness and bias over time.
Friday, 24th of October, Thomas will present his recent work and share insights from his ongoing research in this area.
Bio:
Thomas is conducting research as part of his Ph.D. on the subject of long-term dynamics of bias and fairness in cross-domain recommender Systems. To analyse these dynamics in a real world environment his lab works together with a company within the domain of news, books and lifestyle. The exploration of long-term dynamics in this field has immense potential for the development of fairer recommender systems. He firmly believes in the significance of providing the research community with fresh insights to foster the creation of responsible and fair recommender systems.
Abstract:
Recommender systems have become a key technology in digital media environments, yet their success cannot be measured by accuracy alone. In this talk, Thomas E. Kolb will first provide an overview of the lab’s current research activities across domains such as, e-commerce, fashion, and news. He will then present his past and current work on evaluating and designing recommender systems from a beyond-accuracy perspective, including insights on what makes up a “good reading recommendation” in news contexts based on the lab’s industry collaborations. The talk concludes with an outlook on recent trends in conversational and generative recommender systems, based on insights from his tutorial at the ACM Recommender Systems Conference.
You can follow the talk live by joining zoom: https://uib.zoom.us/j/69085222716?pwd=[REDACTED]

Intelligente Bergen 2025
2025-11-06 09:00 - 15:00 | Universitetsaulaen i Bergen
UiB AI invites you to the fourth edition of the annual conference Intelligente Bergen, on Thursday, November 6. The title of this year’s conference is “Artificial Intelligence – Human Transformation”. The conference will be held in Norwegian.
Intelligente Bergen brings together businesses, the public sector, researchers, and students in the Bergen region to showcase research on and applications of artificial intelligence. The conference takes place in the University Aula, Muséplassen 3 (entrance via the Museum Garden, toward the Student Center).
The conference explores new opportunities for collaboration and opens dialogue across disciplines and sectors. The goal is to connect researchers, industry, students, and the public sector, and to show how AI is being used, studied, and developed across a wide range of sectors in the region. The 2025 conference will place special emphasis on transformation and adaptation.
The conference is free of charge, but requires registration.Register for Intelligente Bergen 2025 here.
Program
08:15–09:00 – Registration and coffee/teaEntrance through the Museum Garden or via Godt Brød and down the stairs. Find your name badge and go up one floor for coffee/tea and to meet other attendees.
09:00–10:10 – Introduction and keynote talks

Dag Stenvoll, Coordinator for UiB AI: “AI and Transformation: Intelligente Bergen 2025”

Morten Goodwin, Professor at the University of Agder: “Artificial Intelligence: A New Era for Humanity”

Nora Gjøen-Gjøsæter, Head of Artificial Intelligence at Kantega: “What’s Preventing Western Norway Companies from Creating Value with AI?”

10:10–10:40 – Break
10:40–11:30 – Artificial Intelligence and Transformation, Part 1

Pål A. Reiersgaard, Area Manager for Platform and Head of Technology & Development, Lerøy Seafood Group: “AI Accelerating the Ocean Industries”

Kjetil Århus, Director of Digitalization, City of Bergen: “AI and Municipal Transformation”

Kjetil Høydal, Innovation Engineer, Norwegian Defence Materiel Agency: “Drones – A Paradigm Shift in the Defense Sector”

11:30–12:15 – Bergen’s New AI Center: AI-LEARNIn June, the Research Council of Norway awarded NOK 200 million to the Artificial Intelligence Centre for the Empowerment of Human Learning, as part of the national AI initiative. The center is led by the University of Bergen (UiB) and NTNU and includes 30 partners.
Speakers in this session include Barbara Wasson (UiB, Center Director), Alexander Joyce (KS/Vestfold County Council), Øystein Nordberg (Midlaier AS), and Ingunn Ness (SLATE), discussing the potential of such a center for the Bergen region.
12:15–13:00 – Lunch
13:00–13:45 – Artificial Intelligence and Transformation, Part 2

Helene Frihammer, Regional Director, NHO Vestland: “Let’s Hope AI Takes Our Jobs!”

Susan Johnsen, Former Managing Director, Allegro: “AI Took Our Jobs”

Benedicte Mosby Irgens, Associate Professor of Japanese Language and Linguistics, UiB: “Foreign Languages and the New Language Technologies”

Vegard Slettvoll, Medical Student, UiB: “AI in Health and Healthcare: Opportunities and Challenges”

Damoun Nassehi, Associate Professor, Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care, UiB: “Socrates AI”

Xieqi Shi, Professor of Dentistry, UiB: “Deep Learning in Dental Radiological Diagnostics”

13:45–14:30 – AI as a Cause and Tool for TransformationThe closing panel discussion addresses key issues that emerged throughout the day. How can AI help meet the need for transformation—caused by factors like an aging population and the green transition? And how does the rapid development of AI itself demand transformation in our workplaces and society at large?
Panelists:

Odd Gurvin, Senior Consultant, Innovation Infrastructure, Vestland County Council

Nora Gjøen-Gjøsæter, Head of Artificial Intelligence, Kantega

Pål Grønås Drange, Associate Professor, Department of Informatics, UiBModerator: Inge Jonassen, Professor/Department Head and Chair of the UiB AI Steering Group

14:30–15:00 – Fruit and Networking

Evaluation of norwegian language models: language and law
2025-11-18 12:15 - 13:15 | Spiserommet, Domus Academica, Oslo
In this seminar, Lilja Øvrelid and Hans Christian Farsethås will give an overview of Norwegian language models and how they are evaluated. They will outline the main features of current evaluation methodology, review existing Norwegian evaluations, and highlight where new approaches are needed—particularly in specialist domains such as law.
Lilja Øvrelid, WP5 leader in MediaFutures, is a Professor at the Department of Informatics (University of Oslo) and leads the Language Technology Group (LTG). She is also a co-leader in Integreat.
Hans Christian Farsethås is a researcher at the Department of Public and International Law (University of Oslo) and part of the Digital Welfare State project.
This seminar is organized by the Research Group on Law & Technology (JOT) and the Norwegian Research Center for Computers and Law (SERI).The event will take place in Oslo and will be held in Norwegian only.

Research on Norwegian Open Large Language Models at UiO
2025-12-11 09:15 - 11:45 | Seminar room Logo 2438, UiO
The Language Technology Group (LTG) at the Department of Informatics, including the leaders of MediaFutures work package 5, hosts a seminar on open large language models for the languages of Norway, with emphasis on ongoing experimentation at LTG with end-to-end model training and evaluation, as well as the introduction of an experimental chatbot prototype.
Large language models (LLMs) are the main engine under the hood of what is often called “generative AI”. For many, it may look as if they emerged out of the blue, and they are mostly associated with commercial blackbox services run by BigTech companies, with trade secrets locked behind armored gates.
But in fact LLMs originally come from research labs and models and training data used to be open: in the same sense as open source software and open science. And nowadays, open LLMs again show signs of catching up in performance with their closed proprietary counterparts, including for languages other than English.
Through the seminar, LTG will present research on open and transparent LLMs conducted at UiO. We will reflect on experiences in adaptation to Norwegian and Sámi, limitations in training and evaluation data, pre-training and fine-tuning of open models, and open methodological questions. For this work, LTG also provides a chatbot prototype, based on our most recent Norwegian model NorMistral-11B.
In addition to presentations by LTG researchers, the Norwegian Language Council will review their findings comparing open and closed LLMs with regards to their Norwegian language skills, and the National Library will present on LLM training data for research in Norway.
Everyone is welcome!
Registration
To help us plan for the event, we ask that prospective participants register on-line.
Program
Coffee is served from 09:15. Moderator: Yves Scherrer (LTG).
9:30 – 9:40 Welcome and introduction (Lilja Øvrelid, LTG)
9:40 – 9:55 The importance of openness in the era of generative AI (Andrey Kutuzov, LTG)
9:55 – 10:05 Web-derived LLM training data for Norwegian (Stephan Oepen, LTG)
10:05 – 10:15 Training data for Norwegian LLM research (National Library of Norway)
10:15 – 10:30 Coffee break
10:30 – 10:50 Developing NorMistral-11B, with chat interface demonstration (David Samuel, LTG)
10:50 – 11:05 NorEval: Native Benchmarking for Norwegian LLMs (Vladislav Mikhailov, LTG)
11:05 – 11:25 The language quality of the Norwegian output in language models. Test results from the Language Council (Kristine Eide, Language Council of Norway)
11:25 – 11:45 Outlook, Q&A (Erik Velldal, LTG)

Winter School at the Northern Lights Deep Learning (NLDL) Conference
2026-01-05 08:00 - 2026-01-09 17:00 | UiT Campus
MediaFutures associate professor Samia Touileb will be speaker at the Winter School at the Northern Lights Deep Learning (NLDL) Conference 2026!
The NLDL Winter School consists of tutorials by experts in the field and is co-hosted by NORA as part of the NORA Research School.
For registration, please use https://www.nldl.org/attend/registration
Getting formal ECTS Credits: UiT The Arctic University of Norway will award 5 ECTS for the Winter School to students who register formally for the course (the number of spots is limited to 40 students).

To register for the 5 ECTS credits use the following link: https://en.uit.no/admission#kapittel_735916

The course description and the course code are available at: https://uit.no/utdanning/emner/emne/862218/fys-8603

Please note that the application deadline is 15 November, which means that you will receive a confirmation of admission a week after the deadline, i.e., 25 November.

For credits, the participants are required to present an ongoing research project (poster presentation) as part of the winter school and complete a home exam afterward. For students early in their PhD without an ongoing research project can present their PhD research objective and future project as a poster.

Note that the poster presentation is part of the NLDL Winter School and not part of the NLDL proceedings. The posters should be in A0 Portrait format.

Posters can be printed locally via Xtenso. If you want to use this service, the poster should be sent to mette@xtenso.no by 20th December. The cost for poster printing is 750 NOK.

Touilebs research focuses on alignment, bias and fairness in NLP, information extraction, summarization, and the application of NLP and machine learning in social science contexts. Her tutorial will address the main sources of bias in NLP systems, existing frameworks for fairness, safety concerns, and current debates about alignment:
Tutorial 4: Ethical challenges in NLP
While AI systems have shown remarkable progress in recent years they raise various ethical challenges. In this tutorial, we will explore this ethical dimension with a particular focus on bias, fairness, and alignment in Natural Language Processing (NLP). The tutorial will combine theoretical discussions with practical examples. We will discuss the main sources of bias in NLP systems, existing frameworks for fairness, safety concerns, and current debates about alignment. We will have a practical, hands-on, session to demonstrate how bias and other safety concerns manifest in modern NLP models, and how to critically evaluate them and reduce them.

Adhera Health Seminar: AI as Family Media for Health and Wellbeing: Personalization, Context, and Biopsychosocial Perspectives
2026-01-21 12:00 - 13:00 | MediaFutures, Media Futures HQ, 3rd floor, Bergen, 5008
MediaFutures invites to Adhera Health’s seminar on AI as family media for health and wellbeing.
Adhera Health is a digital health company that creates AI-powered, personalized support platforms and programs to empower families and caregivers managing pediatric chronic conditions, improve treatment adherence and wellbeing, and enhance health outcomes through evidence-based digital interventions.
AI as Family Media for Health and Wellbeing: Personalization, Context, and Biopsychosocial Perspectives

Abstract
Families today must navigate a complex landscape of health and wellbeing information, often facing waves of misinformation and conflicting guidance. Artificial intelligence can act as a media and communication technology that supports families in interpreting information, building trust, and making informed decisions, while respecting individual and family-level differences.
Modern personalized health communication increasingly relies on context-aware systems that adapt content to family routines, beliefs, and emotional dynamics. Such systems must carefully balance challenges including reducing stigma, respecting the autonomy of different family members, and delivering sensitive content that addresses diverse needs and perspectives. These systems integrate clinical data, psychosocial factors, and personal preferences to generate adaptive, multimodal educational materials, behavioral guidance, and emotional support.
A biopsychosocial perspective is central, recognizing that effective AI-mediated interventions consider biological, psychological, and social dimensions of health. Pediatrics represents a prime testing ground for these approaches, given the need for sensitive, high-stakes communication and the limited research on AI-mediated personalized family support in this context.
Drawing on ongoing research with Adhera Health (USA and Spain) and the University of Bergen, we present examples of AI-mediated communication that complement human care, helping families navigate complex health information responsibly, foster trust, and support wellbeing in ethically and emotionally informed ways.
Speaker bio
Luis Fernández-Luque is Chief Scientific Officer at Adhera Health, where he leads R&D activities in Spain and the USA, including projects funded by the European Commission and NIH, as well as partnerships with healthcare providers and pharmaceutical companies across Europe and the United States.
Since 2006, Luis has conducted pioneering research in mobile health, wearable devices, and AI-driven health applications, including deep learning and health recommender systems. His work sits at the intersection of computer science and behavioral change, combining human factors research with AI to deliver personalized, trustworthy, and effective digital health interventions. He has led and contributed to international research projects on diabetes and obesity in adult and pediatric populations across Europe, North America, and Asia. He earned his PhD at the University of Tromsø, exploring strategies to identify trustworthy content for people with chronic conditions, and collaborated during his PhD with GroupLens (University of Minnesota), the CDC, and Microsoft Research.
Luis has extensive experience in research management, including serving as PI and co-PI on large-scale projects and mentoring PhD students. He is a senior member of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society and has held leadership roles in top scientific societies. He has authored over 150 publications, many of which address the intersection of AI, behavioral science, and digital health in chronic disease management.
