2025
News list
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When AI Meets Ancient Rome
A centurion wearing sneakers and shades? AI image generators sometimes take serious liberties with history. Researchers in classical studies have now developed a tool that creates images of antiquity that are grounded in history, offering fresh insights and perspectives.
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The Google Maps of Cell Analysis
Lucas Pelkmans and Michael Zering are the masterminds behind Apricot BIO, a University of Zurich spin-off. They developed a process that quickly determines the right medication for cancer patients. This provides physicians with valuable information to help them offer personalized medication-based treatment.
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AI Meets CRISPR for Precise Gene Editing
A research team headed by the University of Zurich has developed a powerful new method to precisely edit DNA by combining cutting-edge genetic engineering with artificial intelligence. This technique opens the door to more accurate modeling of human diseases and lays the groundwork for next-generation gene therapies.
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A Faster Path to Tailor-Made Voting Advice
Many undecided voters use the Smartvote online platform ahead of elections to identify candidates that best match up with their political views. Researchers at the University of Zurich (UZH) have now developed an algorithm aimed at improving the quality of voting advice even if the questionnaire is only partially filled out.
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False Heroes and a Disappearing Soldier
AI image generators are like wish fulfillment machines, says Roland Meyer. He is researching how our perception of images is shifting in the digital world and why the political right loves AI-generated imagery.
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A High-Resolution View of Cancer Cells
For roughly 400 years, microscopes have allowed us to observe increasingly smaller details. Today’s most advanced instruments can peer deep into living cells, helping researchers study diseases such as cancer and improve therapies. Several research groups at UZH are working toward this goal.
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Digital Assistant for Cancer Treatment
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the ability to advance precision cancer treatment by using data to predict the course of the disease with greater accuracy. This saves resources and, more importantly, precious time. The “AI tumor board” will help to establish AI at both the University Hospital and the University Children’s Hospital in Zurich.
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Navigating a Sea of Data
Processing, storing and ensuring access to large amounts of data is becoming increasingly important for many researchers. The Data Stewards Network at UZH is there to help them find their way through the data jungle.
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Current AI Risks More Alarming than Apocalyptic Future Scenarios
Most people generally are more concerned about the immediate risks of artificial intelligence than they are about a theoretical future in which AI threatens humanity. A new study by the University of Zurich reveals that respondents draw clear distinctions between abstract scenarios and specific tangible problems and particularly take the latter very seriously.
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Artificial Intelligence: Between Demons and God
An avatar priest, praying via app and artificial intelligence as a deity: UZH anthropologist Beth Singler researches the interplay between AI and religion.
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ChatGPT on the Couch? How to Calm a Stressed-Out AI
Distressing news and traumatic stories can cause stress and anxiety – not only in humans, but also in AI language models, such as ChatGPT. Researchers from the University of Zurich and the University Hospital of Psychiatry Zurich have now shown that these models, like humans, respond to therapy: an elevated “anxiety level” in GPT-4 can be “calmed down” using mindfulness-based relaxation techniques.
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“Whoever controls Artificial General Intelligence, controls the world”
Artificial intelligence has lately been reshaping nearly every sector of the economy, raising profound questions about the future of work, wealth, and power. Will these advancements enhance the intelligence and performance of human beings, or will they deepen inequality and keep on establishing power among a privileged few?
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AI Shifts Power
Machines are not yet capable of thinking like we do. But if artificial intelligence evolves further and does everything better than humans can, it raises questions about what that means for society and whether humans will stay in control.