University of Bamberg
open search form
You are here

Information Systems and Applied Computer Sciences

Chair for AI Systems Engineering (AISE)

  1.  University of bamberg
  2. Faculties
  3. Information Systems and Applied Computer Sciences
  4. Subject groups
  5. Applied Computer Science
  6. Chair for AI Systems Engineering (AISE)
  7. Team
  8. Prof. Dr. Christoph Benzmüller

Prof. Dr. Christoph Benzmüller

E-Mail: christoph.benzmueller(at)uni-bamberg.de

Address: An der Weberei 5, 96047 Bamberg

Office: WE_5/05.090

Tel.: +49 (0)951/863-2942

Office hours: on request

Prof. Christoph Benzmüller is since 2022 chair for AI Systems Development at the University of Bamberg. As an associate (apl.) professor he is also affiliated with the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Freie Universität Berlin (where he has been the first UNA Europa guest chair) and he maintains a close research collaboration with the University of Luxembourg. In addition, he advises AI startup companies in Germany and abroad.

Benzmüller's research interests lie at the intersection of AI/computer science, philosophy, mathematics, and language. His research shows that rational arguments can now be very well mechanized and analyzed in computers by using modern, symbolic AI technology. Benzmüller and his team have developed their own automatic theorem provers (for classical and higher-level non-classical logics) and are applying them in the fields mentioned above. Benzmüller's studies of Gödel's ontological argument for the existence of God in the computer gained particular media attention. The range of applications of his work is far-reaching and concerns, among other things, the mechanisation of ethical-legal reasoning in computers, e.g., for the control of autonomous AI systems.

Benzmüller is convinced that AI, as a scientific discipline, should more strongly focus on the exploration of, and experimentation with, representing objects.* For Benzmüller, it is precisely the exploration and flexible processing of representing objects in combination with hybrid AI technology (fusion of symbolic and subsymbolic techniques) that constitues a core challenge and opportunity for the modeling of (strongly) intelligent AI systems. Explicit, declarative representations are particularly relevant for the realization of trusted and responsible AI systems, since they make normative (and other) knowledge not only transparent and explainable, but also efficiently and robustly communicable between humans and machines.

Benzmüller has conducted research as a visiting professor/scholar at numerous prestigious universities in Germany and abroad and has established a close research network. Stations in his career include: Free University of Berlin, University of Luxembourg, Stanford University (USA), International University in Germany, Cambridge University (UK), University of Birmingham (UK), University of Edinburgh (UK) and Carnegie Mellon University (USA). Benzmüller studied (1989-1995), received his PhD (1999) and habilitated (2006) at Saarland University.

Benzmüller's research activities have been funded by the DFG (Heisenberg Fellowship, Research Stipend, Research Grants, Collaborative Research Center), EPSRC/UK (Research Grant), Volkswagen Foundation (Experiment!), Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes (Doctoral Scholarship), ERC (Research Training Network), FNR/Luxembourg, BMBF, among others.

Prior to his academia career, Christoph Benzmüller was a successful long-distance runner at German national level.

(*The term "representing objects" goes back to the AI pioneer Wolfgang Bibel.)

 

Publications (recent selection)

Passon, O., Benzmüller, C., & Falkenburg, B. (Eds.). (2023). On Gödel and the Nonexistence of Time: Gödel und die Nichtexistenz der Zeit; Kurt Gödel essay competition 2021: Kurt-Gödel-Preis 2021 (1st ed.). Springer Spektrum Berlin.

Baroni, P., Benzmüller, C., & Wáng, Y. (Eds.). (2023). Journal of logic and computation (Vol. 33, Issues 2, Special Issue: Logic and Argumentation). Oxford University Press.

Benzmüller, C., & Otten, J. (Eds.). (2023). CEUR Workshop Proceedings (Issues 3326, ARQNL 2022 Automated Reasoning in Quantified Non-Classical Logics 2022 : Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Automated Reasoning in Quantified Non-Classical Logics (ARQNL 2022) affiliated with the 11th International Joint Conference on Automated Reasoning (IJCAR 2022)). RWTH Aachen.

Baroni, P., Benzmüller, C., & N Wáng, Y. (2023). Preface: Special Issue on Logic and Argumentation. Journal of Logic and Computation, Online First, 1–3.

Bayer, J., Gonus, A., Benzmüller, C., & Scott, D. S. (2023). Category Theory in Isabelle/HOL as a Basis for Meta-logical Investigation. Intelligent Computer Mathematics: 16th International Conference, CICM 2023, Cambridge, UK, , September 5–8, 2023 Proceedings, 69–83.

Benzmüller, C. (2023). Reasonable, Trusted AI through Symbolic Ethico-legal Control and Reflection? (Keynote Abstract). The Florida Artificial Interlligence Research Society, 2023(36).

Benzmüller, C., Bayer, J., Gonus, A., & Scott, D. S. (2023). Category Theory in Isabelle/HOL as a Basis for Meta-logical Investigation (pp. 1–16). arXiv.

Benzmüller, C., & Fuenmayor, D. (2023). Mathematical Proof Assistants for Teaching Logic: the LogiKEy Methodology. Book of Abstracts: International Congress Tools for Teaching Logic V, 1–3. https://doi.org/10.20378/irb-59552

Benzmüller, C., Fuenmayor, D., Steen, A., & Sutcliffe, G. (2023). Who Finds the Short Proof?. Logic Journal of the IGPL, Online First, 1–23.

Benzmüller, C., Solopova, V., Landgraf, T., & Popescu, O.-I. (2023). Automated Multilingual Detection of Pro-Kremlin Propaganda in Newspapers and Telegram Posts. Datenbank-Spektrum, 25(1).

Parent, X., & Benzmüller, C. (2023a). Automated Verification of Deontic Correspondences in Isabelle/HOL: First Results. CEUR Workshop Proceedings, 3326, Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Automated Reasoning in Quantified Non-Classical Logics (ARQNL 2022) affiliated with the 11th International Joint Conference on Automated Reasoning (IJCAR 2022), 92–108.

Parent, X., & Benzmüller, C. (2023b). Normative Conditional Reasoning as a Fragment of HOL (pp. 1–22). arXiv.

Rothgang, C., Rabe, F., & Benzmüller, C. (2023a). Theorem Proving in Dependently-Typed Higher-Order Logic: Extended Preprint (Issue arXiv:2305.15382). arXiv.

Rothgang, C., Rabe, F., & Benzmüller, C. (2023b). Theorem Proving in Dependently-Typed Higher-Order Logic. Automated Deduction – CADE 29: 29th International Conference on Automated Deduction, Rome, Italy, July 1–4, 2023, Proceedings, 438–455.

Solopova, V., Benzmüller, C., & Landgraf, T. (2023). The Evolution of Pro-Kremlin Propaganda From a Machine Learning and Linguistics Perspective. Proceedings of the Second Ukrainian Natural Language Processing Workshop (UNLP 2023), 40–48.

Solopova, V., Gruszczynski, A., Rostom, E., Cremer, F., Witte, S., Zhang, C., López, F. R., Plößl. Lea, Hofmann, F., Romeike, R., Gläser-Zikuda, M., Benzmüller, C., & Landgraf, T. (2023). PapagAI: Automated Feedback for Reflective Essays (pp. 1–12). arXiv.

Solopova, V., Popescu, O.-I., Benzmüller, C., & Landgraf, T. (2023). Automated multilingual detection of Pro-Kremlin propaganda in newspapers and Telegram posts. arXiv.

Solopova, V., Rostom, E., Cremer, F., Gruszczynski, A., Witte, S., Zhang, C., López, F. R., Plößl. Lea, Romeike, R., Gläser-Zikuda, M., Hofmann, F., Landgraf, T., & Benzmüller, C. (2023). PapagAI: Automated Feedback for Reflective Essays. KI 2023: Advances in Artificial Intelligence: 46th German Conference on AI, Berlin, Germany, September 26–29, 2023; Proceedings, 198–206.

Steen, A., Sutcliffe, G., Scholl, T., & Benzmüller, C. (2023). Solving Modal Logic Problems by Translation to Higher-Order Logic. In A. Herzig, J. Luo, & P. Pardo (Eds.), Logic and Argumentation: 5th International Conference, CLAR 2023, Hangzhou, China, September 10-12, 2023; Proceedings (Vol. 14156, pp. 25–43). Springer Nature Switzerland.

Bayer, J., Benzmüller, C., Buzzard, K., David, M., Lamport, L., Matiyasevich, Y., Paulson, L., Schleicher, D., Stock, B., & Zelmanov, E. (2022). Mathematical Proof Between Generations (pp. 1–17). arXiv.

Benzmüller, C. (2022c). Studies in Computational Metaphysics: Results of an Interdisciplinary Research Project. In H. Cukierman & F. Bertato (Eds.), Tópicos em História e Filosofia da Computação (pp. 129–160). University of Campinas (UNICAMP).

Benzmüller, C. (2022b). A Simplified Variant of Gödel’s Ontological Argument. Zygon, 57(4), 953–962.

Benzmüller, C. (2022a). Symbolic AI and Gödel’s Ontological Argument. Zygon, 57(4).

Benzmüller, C., Farjami, A., & Parent, X. (2022). Dyadic Deontic Logic in HOL: Faithful Embedding and Meta-Theoretical Experiments. In S. Rahman, M. Armgardt, & H. C. Nordtveit Kvernenes (Eds.), New developments in legal reasoning and logic: from ancient law to modern legal systems (pp. 353–377). Springer.

Benzmüller, C., Fuenmayor, D., Steen, A., & Sutcliffe, G. (2022a). Who Finds the Short Proof?: an Exploration of Variants of Boolos’ Curious Inference using Higher-order Automated Theorem Provers. arXiv.

Benzmüller, C., Fuenmayor, D., Steen, A., & Sutcliffe, G. (2022b). Automation of Boolos’ Curious Inference in Isabelle/HOL. Archive of Formal Proofs.

Benzmüller, C., & Reiche, S. (2022). Automating public announcement logic with relativized common knowledge as a fragment of HOL in LogiKEy. Journal of Logic and Computation, 33(6), 1243–1269.

Fuenmayor, D., & Benzmüller, C. (2022). Higher-order Logic as a Lingua Franca for Logico-Pluralist Argumentation. Logics for New-Generation AI: Second International Workshop. 10-12 June 2022, Zhuhai, 83–94.

Mucha, H., Correia de Barros, A., Benjamin, J. J., Benzmüller, C., Bischof, A., Buchmüller, S., de Carvalho, A., Dhungel, A.-K., Draude, C., Fleck, M.-J., Jarke, J., Klein, S., Kortekaas, C., Kurze, A., Linke, D., Maas, F., Marsden, N., Melo, R., Michel, S., … Berger, A. (2022). Collaborative Speculations on Future Themes for Participatory Design in Germany. I-Com, 21(2), 283–298.

Steen, A., Fuenmayor, D., Gleißner, T., Sutcliffe, G., & Benzmüller, C. (2022a). Automated Reasoning in Non-classical Logics in the TPTP World. arXiv.

Steen, A., Fuenmayor, D., Gleißner, T., Sutcliffe, G., & Benzmüller, C. (2022b). Automated Reasoning in Non-classical Logics in the TPTP World. CEUR Workshop Proceedings, CEUR-WS.Org.

Steen, A., Sutcliffe, G., Gleißner, T., & Benzmüller, C. (2022). Solving QMLTP Problems by Translation to Higher-order Logic. arXiv.

Logic and Argumentation: 4th International Conference, CLAR 2021, Hangzhou, China, October 20–22, 2021, Proceedings. (2021).

Passon, O., & Benzmüller, C. (Eds.). (2021). Wider den Reduktionismus: Ausgewählte Beiträge zum Kurt Gödel Preis 2019. Springer Spektrum.

Ammon, S., Beck, B., Benzmüller, C., Burchardt, A., Heidingsfelder, L. M., Kaiser, S., Lomfeld, B., Mühlhoff, R., Remmers, P., & Schraudner, M. (2021). KI als Laboratorium?: Ethik als Aufgabe!.

Benzmüller, C. (2021). Exploring Simplified Variants of Gödel’s Ontological Argument in Isabelle/HOL. Archive of Formal Proofs.

Benzmüller, C., & Fuenmayor, D. (2021b). Cantor’s Theorem without Reductio Ad Absurdum (pp. 1–3). Research Gate.

Benzmüller, C., & Fuenmayor, D. (2021a). Value-Oriented Legal Argumentation in Isabelle/HOL. Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), 193, 1–20.

Benzmüller, C., & Reiche, S. (2021a). Automating Public Announcement Logic and the Wise Men Puzzle in Isabelle/HOL. Archive of Formal Proofs.

Benzmüller, C., & Reiche, S. (2021b). Automating Public Announcement Logic with Relativized Common Knowledge as a Fragment of HOL in LogiKEy (pp. 1–28). arXiv.

Solopova, V., Popescu, O.-I., Chikobava, M., Romeike, F., Landgraf, T., & Benzmüller, C. (2021). A German Corpus of Reflective Sentences. Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Natural Language Processing (ICON), 593–600.

Steen, A., & Benzmüller, C. (2021). Extensional Higher-Order Paramodulation in Leo-III. Journal of Automated Reasoning, 65, 775–807.

Benzmüller, C., & Miller, B. (Eds.). (2020). Intelligent Computer Mathematics: 13th International Conference, CICM 2020, Bertinoro, Italy, July 26-31, 2020, Proceedings. Springer International Publishing.

Benzmüller, C. (2020b). A (Simplified) Supreme Being Necessarily Exists, says the Computer: Computationally Explored Variants of Gödel’s Ontological Argument. Proceedings of the Seventeenth International Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, 779–789.

Benzmüller, C. (2020a). A (Simplified) Supreme Being Necessarily Exists, says the Computer: Computationally Explored Variants of Gödel’s Ontological Argument (pp. 1–11). arXiv.

Benzmüller, C., Farjami, A., Fuenmayor, D., Meder, P., Parent, X., Steen, A., van der Torre, L., & Zahoransky, V. (2020). LogiKEy workbench: Deontic logics, logic combinations and expressive ethical and legal reasoning (Isabelle/HOL dataset). Data in Brief, 33.

Benzmüller, C., & Fuenmayor, D. (2020). Computer-supported Analysis of Positive Properties, Ultrafilters and Modal Collapse in Variants of Gödel’s Ontological Argument. Bulletin of the Section of Logic, 49(2), 127–148.

Benzmüller, C., Fuenmayor, D., & Lomfeld, B. (2020). Modelling Value-oriented Legal Reasoning in LogiKEy (pp. 1–57). arXiv.

Benzmüller, C., & Lomfeld, B. (2020b). Reasonable Machines: a Research Manifesto. KI 2020, 12325, 251–258.

Benzmüller, C., & Lomfeld, B. (2020a). Reasonable Machines: a Research Manifesto (pp. 1–8). arXiv.

Benzmüller, C., Parent, X., & Ricca, F. (2020). Introduction to the Special Issue on Logic Rules and Reasoning: Selected Papers from the 2nd International Joint Conference on Rules and Reasoning (RuleML+RR 2018). Theory and Practice of Logic Programming, 21(1), 1–3.

Benzmüller, C., Parent, X., & van der Torre, L. (2020). Designing normative theories for ethical and legal reasoning: LogiKEy framework, methodology, and tool support. Artificial Intelligence, 287.

Benzmüller, C., & Scott, D. S. (2020). Automating Free Logic in HOL, with an Experimental Application in Category Theory. Journal of Automated Reasoning, 64, 53–72.

Fuenmayor, D., & Benzmüller, C. (2020c). Computer-Supported Analysis of Arguments in Climate Engineering. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 12061, 104–115.

Fuenmayor, D., & Benzmüller, C. (2020a). A Case Study on Computational Hermeneutics: E. J. Lowe’s Modal Ontological Argument. In R. S. Silvestre, B. P. Göcke, J.-Y. Béziau, & P. Bilimoria (Eds.), Beyond Faith and Rationality: Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures (Vol. 34, pp. 195–228). Springer.

Fuenmayor, D., & Benzmüller, C. (2020d). Higher-order Logic as Lingua Franca: Integrating Argumentative Discourse and Deep Logical Analysis (pp. 1–35). arXiv.

Fuenmayor, D., & Benzmüller, C. (2020b). Normative Reasoning with Expressive Logic Combinations. ECAI 2020, 325, 2903–2904.

Makarenko, I., & Benzmüller, C. (2020). Positive Free Higher-Order Logic and Its Automation via a Semantical Embedding. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 12325, 116–131.

Reiche, S., & Benzmüller, C. (2020b). Public Announcement Logic in HOL. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 12569(12569), 222–238.

Reiche, S., & Benzmüller, C. (2020a). Public Announcement Logic in HOL (pp. 1–17). arXiv.

Steen, A., & Benzmüller, C. (2020a). On Reductions of Hintikka Sets for Higher-Order Logic (pp. 1–10). arXiv.

Steen, A., & Benzmüller, C. (2020b). The Higher-Order Prover Leo-III. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications, 2020(325), 2937–2938.

Tiemens, L., Scott, D. S., Benzmüller, C., & Benda, M. (2020). Computer-Supported Exploration of a Categorical Axiomatization of Modeloids. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 12062, 302–317.

Selected Student Contributions and Workshop Papers of LuxLogAI 2018. (2019). 10.

Benzmüller, C., & Stuckenschmidt, H. (Eds.). (2019). KI 2019: Advances in Artificial Intelligence; 42nd German Conference on AI, Kassel, Germany, September 23-26, 2019, Proceedings. Springer.

Benzmüller, C. (2019b). What is a proof? What should it be?. In arXiv. arXiv.org.

Benzmüller, C. (2019c). Universal (meta-)logical reasoning: Recent successes. Science of Computer Programming, 172(1), 48–62.

Benzmüller, C. (2019a). Universal (meta-)logical reasoning: The Wise Men Puzzle (Isabelle/HOL dataset). Data in Brief, 24(June, 103823).

Benzmüller, C., & Andrews, P. (2019). Church’s Type Theory. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Benzmüller, C., Farjami, A., Meder, P., & Parent, X. (2019). I/O Logic in HOL. Journal of Applied Logics -- IfCoLoG Journal of Logics and Their Applications, 6(5), 715–733.

Benzmüller, C., Farjami, A., & Parent, X. (2019). Aqvist’s Dyadic Deontic Logic E in HOL. Journal of Applied Logics -- IfCoLoG Journal of Logics and Their Applications, 6(5), 733–755.

Benzmüller, C., & Fuenmayor, D. (2019). Computer-supported Analysis of Positive Properties, Ultrafilters and Modal Collapse in Variants of Gödel’s Ontological Argument. arXiv.

Benzmüller, C., Parent, X., & Ricca, F. (2019). Report on the Second International Joint Conference on Rules and Reasoning. AI Magazine, 40(2), 73–74.

Benzmüller, C., Parent, X., & van der Torre, L. (2019). Designing Normative Theories for Ethical and Legal Reasoning: LogiKEy Framework, Methodology, and Tool Support (pp. 1–50). arXiv.

Benzmüller, C., & Sutcliffe, G. (2019). Explicit Normative Reasoning and Machine Ethics. Arcade 2019 Automated Reasoning: Challenges, Applications, Directions, Exemplary Achievements, 5.

Fuenmayor Pelaez, D., & Benzmüller, C. (2019). Mechanised Assessment of Complex Natural-Language Arguments Using Expressive Logic Combinations. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 112–128.

Fuenmayor, D., & Benzmüller, C. (2019b). Harnessing Higher-Order (Meta-) Logic to Represent and Reason with Complex Ethical Theories. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 11670, 418–432.

Fuenmayor, D., & Benzmüller, C. (2019e). Harnessing Higher-Order (Meta-)Logic to Represent and Reason with Complex Ethical Theories (pp. 1–14). arXiv.

Fuenmayor, D., & Benzmüller, C. (2019a). Computational Hermeneutics: an Integrated Approach for the Logical Analysis of Natural-Language Arguments. Logic in Asia, 187–207.

Fuenmayor, D., & Benzmüller, C. (2019c). A Computational-Hermeneutic Approach for Conceptual Explicitation. Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics, 49, 441–469.

Fuenmayor, D., & Benzmüller, C. (2019d). A Computational-Hermeneutic Approach for Conceptual Explicitation (pp. 1–29). arXiv.

Kirchner, D., Benzmüller, C., & Zalta, E. N. (2019b). Computer Science and Metaphysics: a Cross-Fertilization (pp. 1–39). arXiv.

Kirchner, D., Benzmüller, C., & Zalta, E. N. (2019a). Mechanizing prinzipia Logico-Metaphysica in functional type-theory. The Review of Symbolic Logic, 13(1), 206–218.

Kirchner, D., Benzmüller, C., & Zalta, E. N. (2019c). Computer Science and Metaphysics: a Cross-Fertilization. Open Philosophy, 2(1), 230–251.

Steen, A., & Benzmüller, C. (2019). Extensional Higher-Order Paramodulation in Leo-III (pp. 1–34). arXiv.

Tiemens, L., Scott, D. S., Benzmüller, C., & Benda, M. (2019). Computer-supported Exploration of a Categorical Axiomatization of Modeloids (pp. 1–24). arXiv.

Zahoransky, V. (2019). Modelling the US Constitution to establish constitutional dictatorship. CEUR Workshop Proceedings, 2632, 1–13.

Fuenmayor, D., & Benzmüller, C. (2017). Automating Emendations of the Ontological Argument in Intensional Higher-Order Modal Logic. Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, 10505, 114–127.

Wisniewski, M., Steen, A., Kern, K., & Benzmüller, C. (2016). Effective Normalization Techniques for HOL. Automated Reasoning — 8th International Joint Conference, IJCAR 2016, Coimbra, Portugal, June 27 – July 2, 2016, Proceedings, 362–370.