From nurseries and schools to museums, libraries and hospitals, the real-world laboratory aims to make artificial intelligence tangible for people in various experiments and different real-life environments. The Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Science and Research is funding the real-world laboratory with 800,000 euros.

In the real-world laboratory, people can experience AI, embodied by humanoid robots, in several scenarios. In a new building at the municipal hospital, robots from the next generation of the humanoid ARMAR robots based at KIT will support hospital staff and, for example, guide patients from the reception area to the respective wards. At the KinderUniversum, KIT's daycare center, robots will support children in learning foreign languages, for example, and they can read to children in the city library. At the Goethe-Gymnasium in Karlsruhe and other Karlsruhe schools, children will learn basic concepts of computer science and AI in a playful way. At KIT, students from all over the world can use robots to carry out experiments remotely. Finally, at the ZKM - Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, humanoid robots will interact with visitors.

Depending on the development of the coronavirus pandemic, the first robots will be in use in the course of 2021.

"The exchange of knowledge and experience goes both ways in a real-world laboratory: Research and application come together as equals so that we can then develop precisely the technologies that people really need and want," says Professor Tamim Asfour from the Institute of Anthropomatics and Robotics at KIT and coordinator of the real-world lab. The aim is to develop concrete applications of robotic AI in practice with civil society actors and to explore their opportunities, but also their risks. "The aim is to make the potential of robotic AI directly tangible and tangible for our society, but also to demystify it."