Peter Liggesmeyer, computer scientist and member of the GDNÄ Board Council, on artificial intelligence, obstacles to innovation and affordable cell therapies. 

Professor Liggesmeyer, everyone is talking about ChatGPT these days. Is this also the case in professional circles, for example at your Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering IESE? 
Yes, chatbots have been talked about here too, and not just for a few months, but for years. At IESE there is a general interest in the topic; at the University of Kaiserslautern, where I have been teaching and researching for almost 20 years, it is about the use of ChatGPT in teaching or the evaluation of student performance. These issues are the subject of controversy among colleagues. But I think it will be clear that a complete ban on the use of systems like ChatGPT makes as little sense as its unrestricted use. 

What is your position?
Linguistic models such as ChatGPT can produce polished texts from a few keywords, but they are no substitute for the often tedious and laborious knowledge acquisition that university is all about. The models are suitable for quick bibliographic searches, for example, and can provide valuable services in this regard. The field is currently very volatile, there are good arguments for and against the use of chatbots in universities. I think we should observe the development for a while and make decisions after a reasonable period of time. 

ChatGPT has brought the topic of artificial intelligence sharply into the public consciousness. How do you see the development in this field?
I too am amazed at how fast everything is going and what is possible today. The results are getting better and better. They can no longer compare with the first bulky AI solutions that I worked on as a PhD student in the early 1990s. The big push came in recent years, mainly thanks to high-performance computers and the availability of large amounts of data. But, of course, even these impressive systems are not intelligent in the true sense of the word. 

Where does Germany rank in AI research in international comparison?
With the nationwide German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) and its partner companies, we can keep up a good pace in research and development. In addition, there are numerous AI researchers at universities and research institutions, including Fraunhofer IESE. Overall, I see great opportunities for our country here. One obstacle to innovation could be the planned EU AI Act, a law to regulate AI applications at the European level. The aims of the project are quite honourable; however, I fear that the envisaged implementation might become an obstacle for the technology with negative effects also in practice. We know this from the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which pursues very sensible goals, but confronts us daily with stuffing masks when using the internet in the name of online data protection. We should avoid this at all costs.

© Fraunhofer IESE

Workspace at Fraunhofer IESE.

As a researcher, you have been working for thirty years at the intersection of computer science and classical engineering. Is there a common thread between your projects?
Yes, there clearly is. At the beginning of my scientific career, I focused on software quality assurance. Now I focus on the security of digital systems. This involves two types of security risks: external threats to systems in the sense of the English term “security”, but also “safety”, i.e. dangers emanating from the systems themselves. Security risks exist, for example, in self-driving cars, in autonomous Industry 4.0 environments or in medical technology. If these systems are to make autonomous decisions with the help of machine learning, residual risks must be determined as a basis for the required certifications. This is not currently possible for machine learning components, but it would be important, which is why research is being carried out. Humans are good at constantly finding workable solutions for complicated tasks with imponderables in everyday life. The technical solutions of the future will have to be measured by whether they can do something similar. 

Do you have any examples of this?
Yes, specifically MY DATA Control Technologies from my Fraunhofer Institute. This is software for individual control of data usage. It allows you to define and monitor compliance with data usage rules. For example, one could authorise the use of one’s own data for medical research purposes, but at the same time set up a comprehensive data protection that prohibits the use of the same data for advertising purposes, for example. What happens to one’s own data is always determined by the donor of the data. The system arrives at workable compromises in complicated situations with simple rules, as we humans do every day. 

How important to you is the practical use of your research?
The practical orientation of my research is important to me. If the results are then used in practice, that is, of course, especially motivating. With this in mind, the artificial contradiction between basic and applied research dissolves. Industrial and academic research also come closer together. Thus, at my university I am involved in the areas of “Commercial Vehicle Technology”, “Works of the Future” and “Region and City”. At Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, I am a member of the spokesperson team of the strategic research field “Intelligent Medicine”.  

Intelligent medicine: what does it mean?
Together with several Fraunhofer institutes, we are currently developing automated production technologies for new vaccines and mRNA-based cell therapies. We are using solutions that have emerged in the context of our Industry 4.0 research to be able to produce highly effective and affordable individualised medicines in the future. A very smart and sensible idea, in my opinion.

© Fraunhofer IESE

Main building of Fraunhofer IESE in Kaiserslautern.

You have been a member of the GDNÄ Board for a few months now. What motivated you to accept this honorary position?
On the one hand, the interdisciplinary nature of the GDNÄ, which fits in very well with my professional background. I graduated in electrical engineering in 1988 with a specialisation in data technology. The combination of computer science and engineering runs through my career. In the GDNÄ I would like to advance these subjects and, at the same time, promote their interdisciplinary linkage. For example, by building new bridges with the German Physical Society or the Society for Computer Science. There are also interesting points of reference between engineering, computer science and medicine, for example in the field of RNA therapies. I see the GDNÄ as a crystallisation nucleus for promising co-operations.  

Could this be an argument for young academics to get more involved in the GDNÄ?
I am convinced of it. Young people know how important interdisciplinary cooperation is for real progress. It is very important to be rooted in one’s own subject, that is something I want to point out. Because only those who are well versed in their field can be successful in interdisciplinary teams.

Heike Rauer, Director of the Institute of Planetary Research at the German Aerospace Centre in Berlin-Adlershof, on a new space telescope and her work with young people. 

Professor Rauer, your talk at the 200th anniversary of the GDNÄ was about the old human question of whether life is possible beyond Earth. A few months have passed since then. Have you come a little closer to finding the answer?
I think so. We are making good progress with the work on the PLATO space telescope, which is scheduled to launch at the end of 2026 and can detect Earth-like planets in the Milky Way. We hope PLATO will provide groundbreaking insights that will help us answer questions like these. 

You are part of the PLATO management team. How can we imagine this project?
It is a major scientific project launched in 2014 by the European Space Agency ESA, involving more than a hundred research institutions and the space industry. The acronym PLATO stands for PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars. This mission will help us estimate how many Earth-like planets there actually are. We can then study the atmospheres of discovered planets with large telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope and its successor projects. From a distance of 1.5 million kilometres from Earth, PLATO will study star systems in the Milky Way. It records the brief obscurations that occur when planets enter the space between the star they are orbiting and the telescope. In addition, PLATO measures the seismic oscillations of the stars themselves. Once we look at this data collectively, we will not only be able to infer the mass and radius of the planets, but also determine their age – much more accurately than has been possible so far. 

How many planets are we talking about?
More than five thousand planets outside our solar system, so-called exoplanets, are known today. The nearest planetary system, Proxima Centauri, is 4.24 light years away. The most distant known exoplanets are 22.000 light years away from us. A journey to these planets would take thousands to millions of years with today’s technology and would therefore be impossible. But with space telescopes like PLATO, we can gain important information about them. We are particularly interested in the exact determination of the mean density of planets. So far, this has only been possible for a few hundred planets – and none of them resembles the Earth-Sun system. 

What are you particularly interested in?
Our big goal is to find planets that are habitable, i.e. that have conditions under which life could develop. Since we don’t really know how life develops, we have a lot of factors in mind. We cannot directly observe the biosignatures we are looking for, i.e. signs of life – exoplanets are much too far away from us for that. So we look for indirect traces. Our life on Earth today depends on a high content of oxygen in the atmosphere and on water. Therefore, we are looking for planets with surfaces where there is permanently liquid water and correspondingly moderate temperatures, as well as an atmosphere that is not too dense and not too thin. 

Are these the main criteria for Earth-like planets?
Yes. A central star that is similar to the Sun is also one of these criteria. However, we do not want to exclude the possibility of life in other constellations. However, with increasing distance from Earth as the only example known to us, it becomes increasingly difficult to provide circumstantial evidence for the existence of life. That is why we are initially focusing on Earth-like planets. In parallel, however, we are continuing to search for exoplanets with a wide range of properties in order to understand which types of planets exist at all and to investigate their habitability in the next step.

© OHB-System-AG

The PLATO space telescope (here an artist’s impression) is scheduled to launch from the Kourou spaceport at the end of 2026.

Do you already have first impressions?
Among the known five thousand extrasolar planets, there are types of planets that do not occur in our solar system. In general, the diversity of planets is far greater than we have long assumed. This raises new questions about their formation and habitability. Unfortunately, our instruments are not yet sufficient to detect an Earth-like planet around a star like the Sun. But this would be an ideal candidate for the search for life. So we cannot yet directly compare our planetary system with other systems. A first step towards changing this is the PLATO satellite mission. We can then study the atmospheres of the exoplanets found with PLATO with large telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope and its successor projects. 

More than eight hundred scientists from all over the world are working together in PLATO. How does the collaboration work?
Several consortia, each of which may consist of many partners, are in close exchange with each other. The overall PLATO mission is led by ESA, which also provides the launch vehicle, the ground segment of the satellite and contributions to the payload. The satellite bus, which carries the instrument, is being manufactured on behalf of ESA by an international industrial consortium. The international payload consortium of scientific institutes, also together with the space industry, is building the largest part of the instrument consisting of 26 cameras with associated electronics, on-board computers and power supply units. The payload consortium provides the data centre for the scientific processing of the data and organises the ground-based follow-up observations on telescopes, which will determine the majority of the discovered planets using the so-called radial velocity method. So it is important for the success of such a large-scale project that the various activities and the consortia and organisations involved mesh well. 

When do you expect the first results?
PLATO is scheduled to launch in mid-December 2026. This will be followed by a phase in which the functionality will be tested. Immediately afterwards, the observation of the first target field will begin. If everything goes well, we can expect the first data sets at the end of 2027, beginning of 2028. They will make it possible to characterise short-period planets. However, more time is needed to discover planets with long orbital periods. 

Will you still be leading the project then?
Missions like the PLATO mission are very long-term projects. PLATO was first proposed in 2009 and is based on ideas from even earlier projects. With projects like this, you have to think across generations. I myself will retire around the start of the mission and am looking forward to taking the project to the first data collection. Already, one of my tasks, together with the colleagues who launched PLATO, is to introduce the next generation of young scientists to this and subsequent missions.

© ESA

One of 26 cameras of the PLATO mission.

How did you get into this field of research?
I used to study comets, which can tell us a lot about the formation of our solar system. Then, when the first extrasolar planets were discovered in the mid-1990s, I switched to this line of research. Now, for the first time, we can compare our solar system directly with other systems and learn a lot about the processes that have influenced our system. And of course, I also find it fascinating to search for life beyond Earth. 

At the Leipzig anniversary conference of the GDNÄ, you captivated the audience with your lecture on extrasolar planets. What do such appearances mean to you?
When I give public lectures, I always notice how interested the audience is in our work. They want to know how planets are formed, how life is formed and whether there are planets with life around other stars. Today, for the first time, we can find answers to these questions using scientific methods – and I am extremely happy to report on this work to the interested public. 

In Leipzig, you got to know the GDNÄ’s student programme. Your research centre, the DLR, runs student laboratories, in which you are also involved. What is it about working with young people?
I think it’s important to show young people what research is really about, and I want to encourage them to think further. In my experience, astronomy is particularly suitable for this, because it deals with the big questions of where from and where to, which appeals to young people in particular. We can often motivate them to tackle even difficult courses in the natural sciences and engineering and to persevere until they graduate. 

She is the head of the German Aerospace Center and a new member of the GDNÄ’s Executive Board. In this interview, engineer Anke Kaysser-Pyzalla explains what drives her and what she plans to do.  

Professor Kaysser-Pyzalla, you have been Vice President of the GDNÄ since the beginning of 2023. Do you already have plans for the new office? Yes I do, and two areas are particularly important to me: on the one hand, the recruitment of young people for professions in the thematic spectrum of the GDNÄ, and on the other hand, the interdisciplinary approach to current challenges such as climate change, energy supply or global health. In these areas, the GDNÄ can achieve a lot. It radiates fascination and enthusiasm for the natural sciences, through which we can attract significantly more people to study in this field. I am thinking not only of high school students, but also of adults with professional experience who can imagine pursuing a second degree. There are so many interesting career paths – in research and development, at universities, in large companies, but also in small and medium-sized companies – I would like to focus more on this. 

The topic of interdisciplinarity: Why is it so important to you and what role can the GDNÄ play in this?
We will only be able to overcome the major problems facing humanity through interdisciplinary cooperation, that is the consensus today. The GDNÄ, whose hallmark is interdisciplinarity, can serve as a platform for exchange among experts, a breeding ground for new ideas and a place for public dialogue. 

You will not suffer from a lack of work as Chairwoman of the Executive Board of the German Aerospace Center. How much time and energy does the main office leave you for voluntary activities, for example on the GDNÄ board?
My days are indeed scheduled. But I make time for the GDNÄ because I think people in positions like mine should also be committed to society. I also have wonderful colleagues at DLR and in the GDNÄ who support me.

© DLR (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

A regional aircraft with fuel cell propulsion developed at DLR in test operation. With 25 institutes and facilities in aeronautics research, DLR is driving the change towards sustainable, environmentally compatible aviation.

How can we imagine your day-to-day professional life as head of DLR?
I spend most of my time in meetings and conferences, most of which are held online in the interest of sustainability and efficiency. Internally, organizational development in the direction of modern forms of work is a big topic for us right now. But I’m also on the road, for example at DLR sites, or for personal discussions with our cooperation partners in Germany and abroad. 

Who are these partners?
We work with scientists in academic and industrial research, with large, medium-sized and smaller companies, and with the German armed forces. Abroad, we cooperate closely with research institutions and companies in other European countries, especially France, but also the U.S., Australia, Singapore and Japan – to name just a few countries.   

China is not one of them?
Due to the changing geopolitical situation and international tensions, DLR has consistently reduced its collaborations with China, and existing forms of cooperation are coming to an end. 

Where does DLR stand today and where is it headed?
With more than ten thousand employees, thirty locations and more than fifty institutes and research facilities, we are the largest research center in the engineering field in Europe. We are concerned with aerospace, energy supply, mobility, but also security and defense research and disaster relief. Our work is application-oriented, which means that our research always has an eye on the way it will be used in industry and society. We fly satellites that are important not only for earth and climate observation, but also for navigation, for example in the future topic of autonomous driving. DLR owns a large fleet of aircraft and conducts intensive research into climate-friendly flying.

© DLR

In Germany, the National Test Centre for Unmanned Aerial Systems at DLR is the driving force behind the development of new unmanned aerial vehicles and their integration into the airspace.

At present, air traffic accounts for 3.5 percent of climate-relevant emissions worldwide. How can the burden be reduced?
That depends on passenger numbers and flight distances. Batteries are an option for small aircraft. For short and medium-haul flights, hydrogen-based propulsion systems such as fuel cells are suitable. For long-haul flights, we are thinking about Sustainable Aviation Fuels, or SAF for short, which are produced sustainably from non-fossil raw materials.  We are also looking at the entire aircraft system in order to be able to exploit all technical and technological possibilities on the way to climate-friendly flying. This includes changes in aerodynamic behavior as well as new aircraft configurations or the planning and implementation of climate-friendly flight routes.  

When do you expect the first applications in regular flight operations?
SAF is already being used as an admixture to conventional fuel. We are currently trying to make the quantities required in aviation available on an industrial scale in several projects. 

Let’s take another look at the GDNÄ: After the medical scientist Martin Lohse, a zoologist, Heribert Hofer, has now taken over the GDNÄ presidency. You are a materials scientist and mechanical engineer and will follow in office in 2025. Will the GDNÄ of the future be more technoscientific?
It will be interdisciplinary and there will perhaps be more synergies between the individual disciplines. That fits well with the GDNÄ and well with DLR, which is active not only in the technical sciences but also in the natural sciences: Let’s just think of the Institute of Aerospace Medicine in Cologne, where physicians and psychologists conduct biomedical research at the highest level.

© DLR

The ESA short-arm centrifuge in the :envihab of the DLR Institute of Aerospace Medicine in Cologne. The research facility, the only one of its kind in the world, is used to study the effects of environmental conditions such as gravity on fundamental mechanisms of human health, living conditions and performance. In the new short-arm centrifuge, test subjects can be accelerated with up to 4.5 grams at the foot end.

In its 200-year history, the GDNÄ has had seventy presidents and only two women presidents. Its members are also predominantly male. Is the advancement of women on your agenda?
Yes, this is a very important topic for the future. In medicine, most of the young scientists are already female, but in the natural sciences and engineering there is a need to catch up. We need to do more to show how much fun these professions are and do more to help people combine family and work. 

The student program has become a strong pillar of the GDNÄ, as demonstrated by the 2022 anniversary celebration in Leipzig. What significance does this program have for you and do you already have ideas for promoting young talent?
The student program is a great thing and very important for the GDNÄ. At DLR, we have well-functioning student laboratories, so it may be possible to create synergies. I would also like to show the students how attractive careers in medicine, natural and technical sciences are. Perhaps we will succeed in establishing mentoring relationships between established scientists and young people and in building up a platform with materials for science teaching. I’m sure the members of the GDNÄ have more good ideas – we should collect and evaluate them.

© DLR

DLR School Lab: Experiments on stage at the inauguration at the end of September 2022 gave a foretaste of the new opportunities that DLR_School_Lab Jena offers young people.

Exchange with the public is a strong concern of the GDNÄ. How do you assess the engagement so far? Do you want to deepen the dialogue?
The GDNÄ is held in high esteem by the public and has made great contributions to the dialogue with society. I would like to continue this work. As scientists, we have a duty to contribute our knowledge to the public discussion. It is important to be able to agree on facts and figures, for example on the validity of scientific laws. We scientists must work more towards this. 

Finally, a more personal question: How did you come to join the GDNÄ and what does it mean to you?
I came to the GDNÄ through other members and their enthusiastic descriptions. I am impressed by its great tradition and its openness to future topics. This is what I like to stand up for.