We are proud to share that our students Mika Rosenberg, Lilli-Chiara Kurth, and Max Baraitser Smith (TU / UdK Berlin, Design & Computation), together with Alessandro Mac-Nelly, presented their work Artificial Ants and Ethical Entanglements: Rethinking AI’s Role in Non-Human Research at the Joint IACAP/AISB Conference on Philosophy of Computing and AI (University of Twente, July 1–3, 2025). The project was accompanied by Prof. Albert Lang, Prof. Dr. des. Marc Pfaff, Prof. Dr. Daniel Hromada, and Johannes Pointner.

Ants have long inspired artificial intelligence, from Ant Colony Optimization to multi-agent systems, yet their complex ecologies are often reduced to serve computational efficiency. This research reconsiders that legacy and asks how AI can be developed through design practice to engage ethically with non-human collectives.

At the center is the experiment Seed. Potato. Pixel. which unfolds across three mirrored layers: a living Messor aegyptiacus colony (Seed), human sensory foraging (Potato), and algorithmic agents (Pixel). Rather than extracting models for human optimization, the work creates shared arrangements where ants, humans, and AI agents negotiate care, attention, and responsibility.

Through computer vision tracking, simulation, and formicarium design, these layers are entangled into an interactive environment that reflects critically on the instrumentalization of non-human life. From this emerged five guiding principles: mutual care and asymmetry; surveillance and more-than-human privacy; responsibility through long-term planning; reframing the lab as domestic space; and simulation as co-creation.

The project demonstrates that AI does not replace responsibility but extends it, enabling ethical practice at scale only when embedded in systems of commitment, presence, and mutual attunement.