My research focuses on the explainability of Artificial Intelligence and Reinforcement Learning in particular.

I find it fascinating how Reinforcement Learning algorithms can independently develop strategies based only on observations and rewards. In some cases, the agents even develop new strategies that even humans have not yet considered ( e.g. by the chess computer AlphaZero). However, since only the goal of the agents is defined, it is often not clear what exactly the learned strategies look like. This is exacerbated by the use of modern machine learning techniques, which achieve considerable success but are also very opaque.

The goal of my research is to develop new algorithms that make the behaviour of intelligent agents explainable to users and thus facilitate the cooperation between humans and computers.

2023

An introduction to explanation methods for reinforcement learning and their evaluation. Invited talk in the lecture series "Advanced Topics in AI and Robotics" at the University of Applied Sciences Bonn-Rhein-Sieg, 17.04.2023.

Presenting a demonstrator on Explainable Artificial Intelligence at the opening of the "KI-Erlebnisraums Halle 43". Augsburg, 19.06.2023

2022

Was Pacman denkt – Wie künstliche Intelligenz das Spielen lernt. Talk at the  long night of sciences, Augsburg, 16.07.2022, Slides .

2021

Explainable deep Reinforcement Learning. Invited talk in the CSL Machine Learning Reading Club of the Computational Science Lab (CSL) at the University of Hohenheim, 02.02.2021, Slides .

Since the winter semester 18/19 I am one of the main lecturers for the courses Game Development and Partical Course Game Development.

Other lectures I am involved with:

•  WS22/23: Reinforcement Learning

• WS21/22: Reinforcement Learning

Master’s Thesis

• Deep Reinforcement Learning with MuZero: Theoretical Foundations, Variants, and Implementation for a Collaborative Game (2023)

• Generating Counterfactual Explanations for Atari Agents via Generative Adversarial Networks (2022)

• Design und Implementierung einer Virtual-Reality-Umgebung zum Testen des impliziten Lernens von motorischen sequentiellen Bewegungen (2021, Link)

• Exploring an Explainable Reinforcement Learning Design for a Self Learning American Football Simulation (2020)
• Implementierung und Vergleich verschiedener Salienz-Karten Algorithmen für tiefes bestärkendes Lernen (2019)

Bachelor’s Thesis

• Explaining the Global Behavior of Deep Reinforcement Learning Agents by Combining T-SNE and Policy Summarization (2023)
• Using Reinforcement Learning to facilitate Implicit Learning in a VR Sports Simulation (2021)
• Understanding Subliminal Persuasive Body Language in Political Speeches via ExplainableArtificial Intelligence (2021)
• Verbinden von Belohnungs-Zerlegung und Strategie-Zusammenfassung für erklärbares Bestärkendes Lernen (2021)

• Implementation and Comparison of Occlusion-based Explainable Artificial Intelligence Methods (2020, Link)

• IJCAI 2023 Workshop on Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI)
• Kar4WiN 2023: 4. Workshop zur Karriereplanung für Nachwuchswissenschaftler*innen

• AAAI 2024 Workshop on eXplainable AI approaches for deep reinforcement learning (XAI4DRL)
• ECAI 2023: European Conference on Artificial Intelligence - “Quality Champion” award  vergeben an 58 von 700 Reviewern mit mindestens 4 Reviews, eines als "Erwartungen übertroffen" bewertet und keines als "unter den Erwartungen".
• KI 2023 – Doctoral Consortium
• AAAI 2022: AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence
• IJCAI 2022 Workshop on Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI)

• PAAMS 2023 International Conference on Practical applications of Agents and Multi-Agent System
• IJCAI 2022 Workshop on Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI)

I was Reviewer for the following conferences and journals:

• CHI 2022: ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

• Multimedia Tools and Applications

Since the end of 2022, I am speaker of the Advisory Board for Young Scientists of the Gesellschaft für Informatik (GI), the largest professional society for computer science in the German-speaking world.