AI and Aristotle: Insights from the Lyceum Project

PEDAGOGIES FOR LIFE

Speakers: Vangelis Karkaletsis, National Center for Scientific Research Demokritos, Greece; Alexandra Mitsotaki, World Human Forum; Sergio Imparato, Harvard University; Maria Dagioglou, National Center for Scientific Research Demokritos, Greece

As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly part of our lives, it forces us to confront questions about its place and purpose. What kind of live do we want technology to serve? How can we make sure it remains in the service of humanity? What activities should be outsourced to technology and what, if any, should remain distinctively human? With its attention to human flourishing, his reflections on intelligence and virtue, and his philosophy of ends, Aristotle’s ethical and political thought can give us very valuable tools in this discussion. This realization is at the heart of the Lyceum Project, a yearly interdisciplinary initiative inspired by Aristotle’s Lyceum and bringing together philosophers, scientists, technologists, policymakers, artists, and civil-society leaders in Athens, every June. This panel will explore the origins and development of the project. It will consider why a renewed dialogue between Aristotle and contemporary technology is valuable, and how Aristotle’s ideas might help us think differently about the development, governance, and human purposes of AI.

The panel will be introduced by Naomi Weiss  and Doris Sommer and moderated by Nicolas Prevelakis.

About the speakers

Vangelis Karkaletsis is Director and Chairman of the Board of NCSR "Demokritos." For over twenty years, Karkaletsis has been dedicated to advancing AI from isolated research to a collaborative force driving progress in science and industry. His vision began to take shape during his leadership of the Software & Knowledge Engineering Lab (SKEL | The AI Lab) and has been further refined through his involvement with prominent global committees and associations in AI. As Director of the Institute of Informatics and Telecommunications at NCSR "Demokritos," he champions transdisciplinary co-creation, bridging technology with societal challenges. Karkaletsis envisions AI as a catalyst for global innovation, policy transformation, and a tool to serve humanity in building a better future.

Alexandra Mitsotaki is President and Co-founder of the World Human Forum, a citizen-led initiative born in Delphi in 2017 from a process of collective intelligence and the conviction that systemic change must grow from the bottom up.

This conviction was shaped by decades of engagement with civil society and communities in the Global South. In 1998, she founded ActionAid Hellas, the Greek affiliate of ActionAid International -a global development antipoverty organisation- and later co-founded Action Finance Initiative, Greece’s first microcredit organisation. Her long involvement with the Hellenic Cultural Centre in Paris, which she led for ten years, deepened another fundamental belief: that art and artists have an essential role to play in transforming the way we understand ourselves and the world.

Her experience in Delphi revealed to her the power of place and the importance of bringing ancestral intelligence into dialogue with contemporary knowledge. Through the World Human Forum, she now brings together science, technology, education, democracy, sustainability, inner transformation and the arts, activating emblematic ancient sites including Delphi, Delos, Aristotle’s Lyceum, Eleusis and Ancient Olympia as living spaces for addressing the challenges of our time.

Educated at a German secondary school, Alexandra studied political science at the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) and obtained a postgraduate degree in Development Law. She began her professional life at the OECD, before choosing to move into the non-profit sector, seeking to connect ideas and policy with action on the ground.

A member of the High-Level Roundtable of the European Commission’s New European Bauhaus, Alexandra is a passionate advocate for breaking down silos, connecting disciplines and generations, and turning collective intelligence into action towards a more ecological and humane civilisation.

Sergio Imparato is a Lecturer in Government and Assistant Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Government at Harvard University. He also teaches at Harvard Extension School, Harvard Summer School, and Harvard's Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology Department. Dr. Imparato's research and teaching focus on applied ethics, classical political thought, and grand strategy in International Relations. His primary field of research explores the intersection of ethics, technology, and policy, with a particular emphasis on the ethical implications of emerging technologies in healthcare, artificial intelligence, and the metaverse. Dr. Imparato is interested in how these advancements shape our understanding of human relationships, societal norms and the future of governance. His secondary field of research focuses on the development of ideological frameworks in U.S. Grand Strategy, focusing on how normative considerations influence American foreign policy and global power dynamics. Through this line of work, he seeks to uncover the impact of historical value-systems on contemporary foreign policy decisions.

Maria Dagioglou is a post-doc researcher at the Institute of Informatics and Telecommunications, since 2014. She leads the Roboskel group, the robotics activity of SKEL, the AI lab. Her research interests include the design and development of AI methods, as well as the understanding of human behavior, for safe, transparent and fluent human-AI and human-robot collaboration. She studied Electrical and Computer Engineering (Democritus University of Thrace, GR). She holds a MSc in Biomedical Engineering (TU Delft, NL) and a PhD in Psychology (University of Birmingham, UK). Between 2018-2021, she was a Stavros Niarchos Foundation industrial Post-Doc fellow working on robotics applications for Human-Robot Collaboration at shared workspaces. Maria has extensive experience in the implementation of multi-disciplinary national and EU projects, including experience in coordinating roles and interdisciplinary research management. She lectures on topics related to human factors in AI ethics and human-robot interaction, in the context of two interdepartamental Masters of Science of  IIT (MSc in AI, MSc in Data Science). She is actively involved in initiatives related to AI ethics, including being a member of the High-level Expert Group of Artificial Intelligence appointed by the National Commission for Bioethics and Technoethics and being IEEE CertifAIEd AI Ethics Lead Assessor. She was the special secretary of the Hellenic Artificial Intelligence Society (EETN) between 2023-2024.

Co-sponsored with Harvard's Center for Hellenic Studies (in Greece and DC), the National Center for Scientific Research Demokritos in Greece, the World Human Forum, and the Maliotis Cultural Center.