Do we want an autonomous car to drive us around? Do we want to accept machines guessing our (mental) health problems from a picture we upload to a social media platform?

AI is currently one of the most discussed and most controversial technological trends. Advances in the field of machine learning are supposed to increasingly enable the automation of activities previously reserved for humans. A lot of benefits are promised, for instance in the field energy utilization, public transport systems and traffic or in the field of healthcare. Questions such as: Where will the next breakthroughs in or with AI occur? Which domains have not yet been addressed by AI? can be discussed in this issue. However, we might also ask whether it is desirable to automate each and every task or process within human-technology systems. How can we make optimal use of the respective abilities of human beings and technical system components?

We would like to challenge approaches to AI and encourage you to develop unconventional ways of thinking about AI as well as about interdisciplinary ways of exploring AI fields for health issues, for autonomous driving as well as for industry 4.0 and automation.

We kindly invite you to participate in a virtual conference and to contribute to the first issue of the Journal of Applied Interdisciplinary Research.