Honorary Lecture – Prof. Karl Aberer
Event details
| Date | 12.06.2025 |
| Hour | 18:00 › 19:00 |
| Speaker | Professor Karl Aberer |
| Location | |
| Category | Inaugural lectures - Honorary Lecture |
| Event Language | English |
Date: Thursday 12 June 2025
Program:
Registration: Click here
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Professor Karl Aberer
Trust the Process: On Self-Organizing Semantics
Abstract
In many areas of information processing, from search optimization to information integration and trust inference, we observe a recurring pattern: meaning and structure are not imposed through design but emerge through interaction. Inference becomes a fixpoint process — a process of discovery rather than construction.
This lecture reflects on a personal journey through these ideas, beginning with semantic query optimization, extending to self-organizing peer-to-peer networks and schema integration, and reputation-based trust models. Across these domains, a common thread emerges: when we let systems organize themselves, the challenge is no longer how to solve the problem, but how to ask the right questions.
Today, with the rise of large-scale learning systems and agentic AI, this shift becomes even more acute. As the “how” increasingly takes care of itself through self-organization and emergent inference, the responsibility to define the “what” — to shape objectives, semantics, and purpose — remains with us. Yet, the question arises: will future systems remain bound to our goals, or will their emergent behaviors take them in unforeseen directions?
About the speaker
Karl Aberer is a professor in the School of Computer and Communications Sciences at EPFL. He received his PhD in Mathematics from ETH Zürich in 1991. From 1991 to 1992 he was postdoctoral fellow at the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) at the University of California, Berkeley and from 1992 researcher at the Integrated Publication and Information Systems Institute (IPSI) of GMD in Germany. In 2000 he joined EPFL as full professor.
His research interests are on foundations, algorithms and infrastructures for distributed information management, including semantic interoperability, information retrieval, social networks and trust management. He has produced more than 400 scientific publications.
He was the director of the Swiss National Centre for Mobile Information and Communication Systems NCCR MICS from 2005 to 2012, Vice-President for Information Systems of EPFL from 2012 to 2016, and member of the Swiss Research and Technology Council from 2004 to 2011. He is co-founder of LinkAlong, a startup established in 2017 providing open-source document analytics based on technologies developed in his research.
Program:
- 18:00-18:05: Introduction by Prof. Rüdiger Urbanke, Dean of the IC School
- 18:05-18.35: Honorary Lecture by Prof. Karl Aberer
- 18.35-18:45: Q & A
- 18:45-18:55: Presentation of Honorary Diploma by Prof. David Atienza, Associate Vice-President for Centers and Platforms
- 18: 55: Thank you and closing - Prof. Rüdiger Urbanke
- 18:55-21:00: Apéritif in the FoodLab Alpine restaurant
Registration: Click here
***********************************************************
Professor Karl Aberer
Trust the Process: On Self-Organizing Semantics
Abstract
In many areas of information processing, from search optimization to information integration and trust inference, we observe a recurring pattern: meaning and structure are not imposed through design but emerge through interaction. Inference becomes a fixpoint process — a process of discovery rather than construction.
This lecture reflects on a personal journey through these ideas, beginning with semantic query optimization, extending to self-organizing peer-to-peer networks and schema integration, and reputation-based trust models. Across these domains, a common thread emerges: when we let systems organize themselves, the challenge is no longer how to solve the problem, but how to ask the right questions.
Today, with the rise of large-scale learning systems and agentic AI, this shift becomes even more acute. As the “how” increasingly takes care of itself through self-organization and emergent inference, the responsibility to define the “what” — to shape objectives, semantics, and purpose — remains with us. Yet, the question arises: will future systems remain bound to our goals, or will their emergent behaviors take them in unforeseen directions?
About the speaker
Karl Aberer is a professor in the School of Computer and Communications Sciences at EPFL. He received his PhD in Mathematics from ETH Zürich in 1991. From 1991 to 1992 he was postdoctoral fellow at the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) at the University of California, Berkeley and from 1992 researcher at the Integrated Publication and Information Systems Institute (IPSI) of GMD in Germany. In 2000 he joined EPFL as full professor.
His research interests are on foundations, algorithms and infrastructures for distributed information management, including semantic interoperability, information retrieval, social networks and trust management. He has produced more than 400 scientific publications.
He was the director of the Swiss National Centre for Mobile Information and Communication Systems NCCR MICS from 2005 to 2012, Vice-President for Information Systems of EPFL from 2012 to 2016, and member of the Swiss Research and Technology Council from 2004 to 2011. He is co-founder of LinkAlong, a startup established in 2017 providing open-source document analytics based on technologies developed in his research.
Practical information
- Informed public
- Registration required