Research Project AIL AT WORK Receives Extension

21 Feb 2025

The project will be funded for another 1.5 years by the German Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.

Carolin Wienrich (Psychology of Intelligent Interactive Systems), Astrid Carolus (Media Psychology), and Marc-Erich Latoschik (Human-Computer Interaction) have successfully secured an extension for the research project “AIL AT WORK – Analysis, Development, and Evaluation of AI Systems and AI Literacy in Work Contexts.” The new funding amounts to €664,000 and enables the continuation of the project for another 1.5 years.

The project will continue to be funded by the German Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs as part of the Denkfabrik Digitale Arbeitsgesellschaft.

Measuring AI skills in the workplace

One of the key achievements of the project so far has been the development of a scientifically validated measurement instrument for assessing AI-related competencies in the workplace – the Meta Artificial Intelligence Literacy Scale (MAILS), including a short version.

During the extension phase, additional objective testing methods will be developed, and a representative norming process will be conducted. This process involves creating comparative values (norms) to assess individual results in relation to a representative group.

Privacy-Friendly AI for Science & Industry

Over the next 1.5 years, AIL AT WORK will focus intensively on the challenge of privacy-friendly AI. In collaboration with industry partners, AI workshops will be conducted to identify practical needs and use cases in a participatory manner. Based on these findings, a secure AI infrastructure will be developed, enabling the use of both proprietary AI models and current AI technologies.

This approach ensures the secure storage of sensitive data while also making AI models more flexible and accessible for industrial, educational, and research applications.

Embodied Human-AI Interaction

The project will continue to explore how human interaction with AI changes when AI is embodied – for example, as a doctor, robot, or office colleague. Using Virtual and Augmented Reality, different work contexts will be simulated to examine the impact of AI embodiment and behavior on team dynamics, trust, and perceived competence. Impressions