MediaFutures Series Seminar: Soheila Molaei "From Graphs to Graph Neural Networks: Applications in Multi-Modal Heterogeneous Real-World Data"
2026-05-08 13:00 - 14:00 (Europe/Oslo) | MediaFutures HQ, 3rd Floor, Tower 1, Media City, Media Futures HQ, 3rd floor, Bergen, 5008
MediaFutures warmly welcomes Soheila Molaei talk on:
“From Graphs to Graph Neural Networks: Applications in Multi-Modal Heterogeneous Real-World Data”

All are welcome! Lunch will be served.

Date: 8 May
Time: 13:00-14:00
Venue: MediaFutures

TitleFrom Graphs to Graph Neural Networks: Applications in Multi-Modal Heterogeneous Real-World Data

AbstractIn this talk, I will introduce the basic ideas behind graphs and graph neural networks (GNNs), and discuss why they have become powerful tools for modelling complex, structured, and heterogeneous real-world data. I will begin with an overview of graph-based representations and the core principles of message passing and graph representation learning, before moving to a range of AI applications where GNNs provide advantages over conventional learning approaches. In particular, I will discuss applications in heterogeneous and multimodal settings, including privacy-preserving federated learning, neuro-symbolic modelling, and emerging graph-based methods for spatial and multi-modal data integration. Overall, the talk aims to connect the foundations of graph learning with current AI challenges involving structure, heterogeneity, and multi-source data.

Speaker’s bioSoheila Molaei is a senior researcher in the Department of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on artificial intelligence and machine learning, with a particular emphasis on graph neural networks, federated learning, neuro-symbolic AI, and learning from multimodal and heterogeneous data. Her work explores how graph-based methods can support robust, interpretable, and privacy-aware AI systems across complex real-world applications. She has also collaborated with researchers at the University of Bergen on graph-based and neuro-symbolic learning research.

Public lecture by Luciano Floridi
2026-05-20 15:30 - 16:45 | Storsalen, Nygårdsgaten 5 (første etasje)
Welcome to a public lecture with our new honorary doctor professor Luciano Floridi.
Date: 20.05.2026
Time:15.30–16.15
Venue:Storsalen, Nygårdsgaten 5
Please arrive five to ten minutes before the starting time.

The University of Bergen has appointed Professor Luciano Floridi of Yale University as an honorary doctor, following a nomination from the Faculty of Social Sciences and the Department of Information Science and Media Studies.
Professor Floridi will give a public lecture drawing on his foundational contributions to information ethics, the philosophy of AI, and digital society. The title of the lecture is: “What is the impact of AI on Democracy?”. You can read more about the lecture here.
Through his role on the MediaFutures International Advisory Committee, Professor Floridi actively contributes to shaping the centre’s research agenda on responsible media technologies and AI-driven innovation, strengthening the bridge between cutting-edge research, industry needs, and societal values.
The honorary doctorate will be formally conferred at a ceremony in the University Aula on 21 May 2026. The appointment of Professor Floridi further strengthens MediaFutures’ international profile and underlines the University of Bergen’s commitment to advancing responsible and trustworthy media technologies.
Read more about Professor Floridi and his role at MediaFutures here.
On the occasion of his appointment as an honorary doctor, Professor Luciano Floridi was interviewed by Innovation Coordinator at MediaFutures Christopher Senf and Communication Officer at the Infomedia Department Malgorzata Anna Pacholczyk. Read the interview here.
The lecture is open to the general public. Everybody is welcome!

Workshop & Debate: Luciano Floridi on AI and social futures
2026-05-20 17:00 - 19:00 | Media City Bergen, Lars Hilles gate 30, Bergen, 5008, Norway
Date: 20.05.2026
Time: 17.00–19.00
Venue: Media City Bergen, Lars Hillesgate 30
Our honorary doctor Luciano Floridi will be the main guest at a workshop on the topic “AI and social futures” in Media City Bergen. The workshop will engage staff, students and stakeholders at Infomedia in a discussion of core challenges for the future of academia. The event is by invitation only.
The event is intended to engage people at the Infomedia department in a dialogue with professor Luciano Floridi about central challenges for academia posed by generative AI.
We invite our academic and administrative staff, our PhD candidates, and master and bachelor students, and we also invite stakeholders and partners associated with Infomedia. We will engage in a structured roundtable discussion on societal challenges brought on by AI.
The workshop will be held in the “Redaksjonsrom” in Infomedia’s campus at Media City Bergen, Lars Hilles gate 30. The doors will be open and we will look for our guests as they arrive.
You can read more about the workshop here.
Through his role on the MediaFutures International Advisory Committee, Professor Floridi actively contributes to shaping the centre’s research agenda on responsible media technologies and AI-driven innovation, strengthening the bridge between cutting-edge research, industry needs, and societal values.
The honorary doctorate will be formally conferred at a ceremony in the University Aula on 21 May 2026. The appointment of Professor Floridi further strengthens MediaFutures’ international profile and underlines the University of Bergen’s commitment to advancing responsible and trustworthy media technologies.
Read more about Professor Floridi and his role at MediaFutures here.
On the occasion of his appointment as an honorary doctor, Professor Luciano Floridi was interviewed by Innovation Coordinator at MediaFutures Christopher Senf and Communication Officer at the Infomedia Department Malgorzata Anna Pacholczyk. Read the interview here.

UiB AI Seminar: AI Alignment
2026-05-28 09:00 - 15:45 | Storsalen, Nygårdsgaten 5, first floor, Nygårdsgaten 5, Bergen, 5015, Norway
Date: 28th of May 2026
Time: 09.00–15.45
Venue: Storsalen, Nygårdsgaten 5, 5015 Bergen (first floor)
The event brings together experts, researchers, and industry professionals to explore, discuss, and advance our understanding of the challenges and solutions related to aligning artificial intelligence systems with human values and goals.
The seminar is organized and moderated by Samia Touileb, an Associate Professor in the Department of Information Science and Media Studies at the University of Bergen and co-leader of the Norwegian Language Technologies research stream at MediaFutures.
Among the speakers is Ryan Marinelli, a postdoctoral researcher at MediaFutures, who will give a presentation on safety or security.
To view the updated program and register for the event, please visit the official organizer’s website.

KIME seminar: From algomaxxing to AI influencers
2026-06-12 09:30 - 14:00 | Center for Digital Narrative, LG1 lounge (Langes gate 1-3)
Welcome to a half-day seminar discussing new practices and phenomena emerging from the study of algorithms and artificial intelligence in culture and society.

The seminar will include talks from two visiting scholars doing research on cutting-edge phenomena in digital culture – algomaxxing and AI influencers – followed by a lunch discussion in which participants can receive and offer feedback on their own development of concepts and methods for the study of similar topics.

Programme:
09:30: Welcome & Introduction from KIME
09:45: Talk by Idil Galip: Algomaxxing: Notes on cultural production after the algorithm
10:45: Coffee break
11:00: Talk by Alexandra Deem: Automating authenticity: The rise of AI influencers
12:00: Lunch & discussion with the speakers: “Developing concepts and methods for the study of AI cultures”

The seminar is hosted by the ALGOFOLK (Algorithmic folklore: The mutual shaping of vernacular creativity and automation) project at the Center for Digital Narrative, and the Imagine (Citizen perceptions of AI in everyday media life) project at the Department of Information Science and Media Studies. The collaboration is funded by a grant from UiB’s strategy for the humanities, on the topic of authenticity and digital media in an age of AI (KIME – Kunstig intelligens og autentisk medieinnhold).
Read more about the event and register on the official organizer’s website.
Lunch is free for anyone who signs up to the seminar, please find details on the official organizer’s website.
Contact person: Gabriele de Seta

MediaFutures Series Seminar: Lucie Flek "From Framing to Alignment: Representing Human Worldviews in AI"
2026-06-18 12:00 - 13:00 | MediaFutures HQ, 3rd Floor, Tower 1, Media City, Media Futures HQ, 3rd floor, Bergen, 5008
MediaFutures warmly welcomes Lucie Flek’s talk on:
“From Framing to Alignment: Representing Human Worldviews in AI”.

Date: 18 June
Time: 12:00-13:00
Venue: MediaFutures HQ (3rd Floor, Media City)
Zoom Link: https://uib.zoom.us/j/63914739737?pwd=[REDACTED]

Abstract:
Educational materials, political discourse, and online communities do more than communicate information: they express perspectives, values, and worldviews. In our information ecosystem, these human representations are no longer only interpreted by people – they are also learned, reproduced, and transformed by AI systems.
This talk explores the connections between framing, pluralism, and AI alignment through the lens of representation. What does it mean for an AI system to represent a perspective? Can models capture diverse viewpoints without collapsing them into a single “average” position? And how should we think about alignment when values themselves are heterogeneous and contested?
Lucie Flek argues that many AI alignment challenges boil down to challenges of representation: whose perspectives are captured, which values are privileged, and whether our evaluation methods are even robust enough to evaluate and control these choices.
Speaker’s bio:
Lucie Flek is a full professor at the University of Bonn, leading the Data Science and Language Technologies group. Her main interests lie in machine learning research for natural language processing (NLP), including AI robustness and safety. The application areas range from large language models and conversational systems, across clinical NLP and mental health research, to misinformation detection and social media analyses. Prof. Flek has been active both in academia and industry – she used to manage natural language understanding research programs in Amazon Alexa and contributed to the Google Shopping Search launch in Europe. Her academic work at the University of Pennsylvania and University College London revolved around user modeling from text, and its applications in psychology and social sciences. Her PhD at TU Darmstadt focused on meaning ambiguity, incorporating expert lexical-semantic resources into DNN classification tasks. She has served as Area Chair for Computational Social Sciences at numerous ACL* conferences, and as an editor of the NLP section of multiple AI journals. Before her career path in natural language processing, Prof. Flek has been contributing to particle physics research at CERN in the area of axion searches.

Arendalsuka: "Responsible AI moving from research into practice in Norwegian news media"
2026-08-11 11:00 - 11:45 | Arendalsuka, Kunstig Intelligens-teltet Kirkebakken 19, Tyholmen, Arendal, Norway
About the Event
Artificial intelligence is transforming journalism and the media industry at an unprecedented pace, creating both new opportunities and significant challenges. This event brings together researchers and industry partners from SFI MediaFutures to explore how responsible AI is moving from research into practice in Norwegian news media.
MediaFutures Centre Leader Christoph Trattner, Innovation Coordinator Christopher Senf, and MediaFutures industry partners will present ongoing research, real-world applications, and discuss how AI can strengthen editorial practices, support trustworthy journalism, and help maintain public trust in an evolving digital landscape.
More information about the programme and speakers will be announced soon.
Official Program website: https://www.arendalsuka.no/program/ansvarlig-ai-i-nyhetsmedier-fra-forskning-til-praksis
Program & Speakers:

11:00–11:02 — Welcome and framing (Christopher Senf, SFI MediaFutures)
11:02–11:08 — Why responsible AI in news media matters now (Christoph Trattner, SFI MediaFutures)
11:08–11:17 — VITAL: verifying health and lifestyle claims (Christoph Trattner and Tobias Wessel, SFI MediaFutures)
11:17–11:26 — Tackling misinformation with AI (Gaute Kokkvoll, Factiverse AS)
11:26–11:35 — AI-enabled detection of fake content (Runa Engen, Faktisk.no)
11:35–11:45 — Moderated Q&A: what must Norway build next? (All Speakers & moderated by Christopher Senf, SFI MediaFutures)

Annual Meeting 26: Our public flagship conference
2026-11-05 13:00 - 2026-11-06 18:00 | Scandic Ørnen, Bergen
Keep the date in your calendars! We are underway in planning the Annual Meeting for 2026!
Thursday, 5 November

Workshop / Networking event
Dinner in the evening at Scandic Ørnen – ROAST

Friday, 6 November

Annual Meeting 2026 at Scandic Ørnen

A detailed programme and further information will be shared closer to the event. We look forward to seeing you there!
