Ethical aspects of agentic AI

Date: 10 December 2026, 10:00 – 11:30 (CET)Price: Free (for eligible participants)Format: AI:AT Webinar, ONLINE (Zoom)Target audience: Industry, public admin, academiaLanguage: EnglishOrganizer: AI:ATAs AI agents transition from simple assistants to autonomous actors with tool access, new risks emerge. Explore the ethical dilemmas, accountability gaps, and practical frameworks needed to safely deploy agentic AI in public administration and beyond.Autonomous AI agents promise significant efficiency gains through data integration and tool execution. However, delegation of agency raises critical ethical and operational challenges: value alignment, opacity in reasoning chains, data contamination, and the emerging "accountability gap" when decisions go wrong.This session explores how to balance innovation with ethical oversight. We will examine structured decision-making frameworks (such as Make vs. Buy evaluations, environmental cost-benefit analysis, and algorithmic containment) and discuss real-world implementations. Attendees will gain a grounded perspective on navigating AI governance, human-in-the-loop controls, and risk management in mission-critical environments. Key topics include:Understanding the core ethical risks and accountability challenges inherent to autonomous, tool-using AI agentsLearning how to evaluate AI deployment using structured decision trees, balancing efficiency against environmental impact and data sovereignty.Identifying effective governance strategies, including algorithmic containment and human-in-the-loop oversight for public administration and administrative workflows.Target audienceThis webinar is designed for professionals across industry, public administration, and academia who are engaging with the governance and deployment of AI systems — especially for developers and product teams building or integrating agentic AI into real-world workflows.This webinar is open and free of charge for all participants from academia, industry, and public administration from EU and/or EuroHPC JU member countries.Entry level & prerequisitesBasic understanding of artificial intelligence, LLMs, and decision-support systems in public or organizational contexts. No programming skills required.Agenda & ContentWelcome & Presentation of AI Factory Austria AI:ATWhat are Software Agents?From Chatbots to Autonomous Agents: The Risks of Agentic AIAccountability Gap and Evaluation Challenges (Data Contamination, Benchmark Limitations)Structured Governance: Make vs. Buy, Environmental Impact, & Human-in-the-Loop FrameworksPractical Case StudiesQuestions & DiscussionSpeakersDr. Sven Schlarb (AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, Data Science & Artificial Intelligence research group)Dr. Sven Schlarb is a scientist at the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, working within the Data Science & Artificial Intelligence research group. He holds a PhD in Digital Humanities from the University of Cologne and specializes in Trusted AI, Semantic Web architectures, and ethical AI governance within public administrative and institutional frameworks.LanguageEnglishDate, time, and location10.12.2026, 10:00 – 11:30 (CET), LIVE ONLINE WEBINAR (Zoom)RegistrationRegistration is required, the link to the registration form can be found on the top of this page in the menu on the left. Please register with your official institutional email address to prove your affiliation.You will get the Zoom link in the automatic confirmation by email (subject starting with "[Indico] Registration"), please check your Spam/Junk folders). We will also send 1–2 reminders before the webinar.Please do not hesitate to contact us at [email protected] if you have any questions.Modification, withdrawal & no-show policyYour registration is binding. Please only register for the course if you are really going to attend.You can update your registration data or withdraw your registration anytime before the registration form has been closed via the link "Manage my registration" which you can find at the bottom of your automatic email confirmation (subject starting with "[Indico] Registration").Alternatively, or after the registration form has been closed, please inform us about your cancelation or any change in your registration data (especially your mobile-phone number) via email ([email protected]).No-show policy: If you do not cancel and do not show up at the course you will be blacklisted and excluded from future training events.OrganizersThis webinar is organized by AI Factory Austria AI:AT.AcknowledgementsAI Factory Austria AI:AT has received funding from the European High-Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No 101253078. The JU receives support from the Horizon Europe Programm of the European Union and Austria (BMIMI / FFG). 

https://events.asc.ac.at/event/365/