Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to increasingly impact various aspects of life and academia. Advancements in AI are posing multiple challenges: AI-powered surveillance systems, such as facial recognition technology, can track an individual's movements and activities without their consent, resulting in mass surveillance and violating privacy rights. AI systems trained on biased data can perpetuate and exacerbate discrimination in areas such as the hiring process, getting a loan, and law enforcement, impacting individuals based on ethnicity, gender, or other typs of privacy-protected characteristics. AI applications generate unfair disparities in healthcare, criminal justice, and education, particularly amongst marginalized groups. Moreover, AI-driven content moderation on social media platforms can result in over-censorship. AI can also be misused to spread misinformation, manipulate public opinion, and undermine democratic processes. Deploying autonomous AI systems in critical areas such as the military and legal systems can result in decisions that lack human oversight and raise significant ethical and moral concerns. As this technological evolution seems to outpace European and International regulations, safeguarding fundamental human rights in the digital age becomes increasingly important.

The 2025 Winter School will explore critical junctures between AI and human rights law by bringing leading experts, scholars, and students in different majors together to engage in critical discussions and collaborative learning opportunities.

The Winter School program will address pressing questions, including:

• (How) Is AI reshaping the human rights landscape?
• (How) Can human rights law effectively address the challenges AI poses?
• In an age of AI, do we need to revise Human Rights Law?
• Can principles regarding human rights guarantee that in practice, AI will be applied in a humanistic way?

The program seeks to create an engaging and enriching experience and will feature presentations by keynote speakers, hackathons, and both theoretical and practice-based contributions and perspectives.

The Winter School program will take place between February 17 - 20, 2025, at the JKU Linz. There is no fee to take part and overnight accommodations are available. The Winter School program will be held in English.