Year: 2023

Today we had the first snow of the year. It’s hard to believe that just a few days ago we were strolling through sunny and warm Lisbon without a jacket and scarf.

In mid-August, we applied to participate in the ALPHA program of the Web Summit without initially imagining we had a great chance of participating. But then, a few days later, an employee from the Startup Team contacted us and invited us to an online meeting. Shortly thereafter, we received the joyful message: We’re in!

The ALPHA program includes three-day access to the Web Summit for three people. In addition, an exhibition stand on one of the three days and the opportunity to apply for further startup activities. We didn’t want to miss out on this, of course, and also applied to participate in the PITCH competition, the Startup Showcase, and 40 Words. Our efforts paid off and we actually received two acceptances.

So, on November 13th, we set off from Hamburg to Lisbon. To spare our wallets, we had chosen a cozy apartment in the Alfama district. Although we didn’t make it to the opening event in time, we were able to make first contacts at the Night Summit in the Hub Criativo do Beato and enjoy the Portuguese flair.

On Tuesday, we were able to present Splitbot at our stand all day. Here, too, there were many interesting discussions with potential customers and partners, and it became clear that we stand out strongly from other startups with our self-developed code. After a short stop back at our accommodation, we were guests at the German Startup Night in Factory Lisbon in the evening. This was hosted by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, among others, and we ended the exciting day with stimulating conversations with people from a wide range of industries.

We took things a little easier on Wednesday. After a morning meeting with a potential investor in the old town of Lisbon, we attended several pre-arranged appointments. Again, great contacts were made, which we have already been able to further develop and utilize. In the afternoon, we enjoyed the fantastic diversity of Lisbon on a ride in the traditional tram and then met up with some startup colleagues for tapas.

On Thursday, we went full throttle one last time and cheered on our developer Bartosz at the Splitbot presentation in the Startup Showcase – a two-minute bare-bones pitch on a big stage. Bartosz presented as confidently as ever and received a lot of applause and further exciting contact details. Afterwards, we went straight to the airport and back to our home turf.

We thank everyone who has accompanied us on our journey and look forward to the coming year.

In the context of Artificial Intelligence (AI), ethical standards and guidelines are frequently questioned. What constitutes ethical use of AI? What requirements do we need? And what do we consider ethical and unethical? These and similar questions arise in the media, in discussions with clients, and in our private lives. However, we ourselves, in particular, continuously reflect on our work and our standards. Even before the establishment of Splitbot GmbH, our team collaboratively developed guidelines on this subject. It became clear that defining ethical principles is not straightforward. While there is a common societal understanding of morality and ethics, individual interpretations and personal assessments vary in certain aspects. It is clear to us that no software, with or without AI, inherently understands ethics. Ethical guidelines must, if at all possible, be set by humans. This approach is also reflected in the definition of ethics. Ethics is the science of morality and thus the evaluation of human actions. Therefore, it may be less about adding rules to our software and more about ensuring its ethical deployment.

The assumption that AI possesses the ability to think for itself is simply untrue. At its core, AI is not much more than very, very precise statistics. AI determines probabilities based on data. Without appropriate training data, an AI program cannot generate results. It is precisely this data that causes AI programs to occasionally appear unethical. For example, if an AI for selecting applicants is trained only with data from male applicants, it will not be able to consider female applicants equally. Therefore, both in data provision and in the evaluation of the results delivered, human ethical judgment is required. It must also be permissible to question to what extent the use of Artificial Intelligence for the automated answering of complex questions might not contradict ethical principles. The goal must therefore be to establish ethical guidelines for the individuals involved, not for the programs themselves. AI is just one of many potential tools that can be misused. But what might such guidelines look like? This is just one of many questions for which we have not yet found a definitive answer. We are all the more grateful for the collaboration with Prof. Dr.-Ing. Christian Herzog and the students of the Technology Ethics degree program at the University of Lübeck, which we recently initiated. Prof. Dr. Herzog offered us and other startups from the region the opportunity to introduce ourselves and present our ethical questions. The participants of the degree program will address a wide range of ethical topics in the coming weeks and present their proposed solutions. We are very much looking forward to the intensive exchange and especially to examining the topic from different perspectives. This enables us to consider as many aspects as possible in the further development of our product.