The TU Wien and the Digital Humanism steering committee are pleased to invite you on short notice to this special event celebrating the 70th anniversary:
Thursday, June 18, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. (10:00) Central European Summer Time (UTC+2)
Topic: “18th June – International Panic Picnic Day and the 70th anniversary of Dartmouth workshop on AI”
It’s June 18th: That’s International Panic Day, International Picnic Day, and this year the 70th anniversary of Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence. The Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence was a 1956 summer workshop widely considered to be the founding event of artificial intelligence as a field. Around June 18, 1956, the earliest participants (perhaps only Ray Solomonoff, maybe with Tom Etter) arrived at the Dartmouth campus in Hanover, N.H., to join John McCarthy who already had an apartment there. Solomonoff and Minsky stayed at Professors’ apartments, but most would stay at the Hanover Inn.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
Speaker: Toby Walsh (University of New South Wales, Australia)
Speaker: Clemens Wasner (enlite and AI Austria)
Moderator: Sarah Kriesche (Ö1, Austria)
To participate in the talks via Zoom go to: https://tuwien.zoom.us/j/96389928143?pwd=UU5YRkNuRmdoWHV4MFBwMWRCcUErdz09
(Password: 0dzqxqiy)
The event will be live streamed and recorded on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/digitalhumanism
In case you missed our last DigHum lecture by Franco Accordino and Monika Lanzenberger you can watch the recording of “Drones, Swarm Intelligence, and the Future of Cyber-Physical Societies”.
Next Digital Humanism Events:
24.-26.06 Digital Humanism Conference 2026 in Vienna
06.-10.07 5th Digital Humanism Summer School
stay up to date via our public calendar
We are looking forward to seeing you!
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ABSTRACT “18th June – International Panic Picnic Day and the 70th anniversary of Dartmouth workshop on AI”:
It’s June 18th: That’s International Panic Day, International Picnic Day, and this year the 70th anniversary of Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence. The Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence was a 1956 summer workshop widely considered to be the founding event of artificial intelligence as a field. Around June 18, 1956, the earliest participants (perhaps only Ray Solomonoff, maybe with Tom Etter) arrived at the Dartmouth campus in Hanover, N.H., to join John McCarthy who already had an apartment there. Solomonoff and Minsky stayed at Professors’ apartments, but most would stay at the Hanover Inn.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
Join us for ‘The Shortest History of AI’ by Toby Walsh followed by ‘panic’ discussion with Clemens Wasner on the latest AI developments (US government directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5, …) in a ‘picnic’ environment moderated by Sarah Kriesche.
From the book, and the inspiration for this event:
HOW IT BEGINS
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE BEGAN on June 18, 1956. It was a Monday.
June 18 is International Panic Day, which seems appropriate for the day
humanity started working on AI. It’s a day on which it’s recommended you ignore author Douglas Adams’s famous advice:
In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim
of the Galaxy, the Hitchhiker’s Guide has already supplanted the
great Encyclopaedia Galactica as the standard repository of all
knowledge and wisdom.… It scores over the older, more pedestrian
work in two important respects.
First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words DON’T
PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.
Watch the event trailer here.
Short Bio of Toby Walsh:
Toby Walsh is an ARC Laureate Fellow and Scientia Professor of AI at UNSW Sydney. He is Chief Scientist of UNSW.AI, UNSW’s campus wide AI Institute. He is a strong advocate for limits to ensure AI is used to improve our lives, having spoken at the UN, and to heads of state, parliamentary bodies, company boards and many others on this topic. This advocacy has led to him being “banned indefinitely” from Russia. He is a Fellow of the Australia Academy of Science, and was named on the international “Who’s Who in AI” list of influencers. He has written five books on AI for a general audience, the most recent is The Shortest History of AI: six ideas are all you need to know.
Short Bio of Clemens Wasner:
Clemens is founder and initiator of AI Austria, CEO of enliteAI, AI podcast host and he publishes the Austrian AI Landscape, and has been driving ecosystem and policy initiatives at the national and EU levels for many years (EAIF, former Vice President of Adra).https://at.linkedin.com/in/clemenswasnerShort Bio of Sarah Kriesche:
Sarah Kriesche is a science editor for Ö1, an Austrian radio station, and was born and raised in Graz. Sarah’s career in broadcasting began in 1999 when she moderated the radio program “Nachbar in Not” for ORF, reporting on current events in Southeast Europe in six languages. She has worked at various stations, including St. Pölten, Wiener Neustadt, Gran Canaria, and Vienna. She is a recipient of the Prälat-Leopold-Ungar Recognition Award for her weekly series “Vielfalt in Wien,” (Radio Wien) which highlights the diversity of Vienna’s people and how cultural coexistence enriches the city’s quality of life. Her contribution to the history of surveillance in Vienna (Ö1) was awarded the Hamburg Surveillance Studies Prize. Sarah’s work emphasizes the exploration of technical innovations and their societal impact. Since 2010 she designs and presents several programs, including “Matrix”, “Digital Leben”, “Radiokolleg” and news broadcasts.