Plug-in Modules
Interdisciplinary, innovative, and cooperative: in Plug-in Modules, students work together with their peers from all schools on projects that transcend disciplinary boundaries – developing individual talents and skills for tomorrow’s challenges.
Plug-in Modules in the winter semester 2026/27
AI & Digitization
After the class, students will be able to apply advanced computational methods to their own research projects. They will be able to collect and manipulate data.
This course examines how artificial intelligence is transforming industries, work, leadership, and business processes. Students gain academic insights into the impact of AI on professions, the roles of employees and managers, and on process analysis and automation. The course combines academic foundations with practical examples and application-oriented projects. Through workshops and group work, students learn to critically evaluate, design, and manage AI-driven solutions for work, leadership, and processes within an organizational context.
The module can be taken either as a lecture (3 ECTS) or as a lecture and seminar (6 ECTS). Students will gain a deep understanding of how to align generative AI systems with societal values, focusing on fairness, accountability, and transparency. Through hands-on experience, they will learn to identify and mitigate biases in AI models while developing the skills to balance innovation with ethical responsibility in real-world applications.
Detailed information and registration in TUMonline:
AI agents are often predicted to be the next great advancement in digital technology. However, there’s considerable uncertainty about the nature of AI agents and how they can best complement human agency. This seminar builds on the rich philosophical discussion of agency to clarify fundamental questions about AI agents, including: What is an agent, and what constitutes agency? What role do intentionality, consciousness, will, and understanding play in agency? Are AI agents complete agents on their own, or do they inherently depend on human agency? Are there fundamental limits to what they can do? How can AI agents best cooperate with human agents?
These questions will be discussed based on groundbreaking philosophical texts chosen by students from a list. Students can also suggest other texts of their interest. The seminar comprises both regular in-person meetings and exchanges with SAP employees working with AI agents in business contexts.The seminar examines AI’s transformative potential for business and society by exploring its unique relationship with language and meaning. Some of our discussion of AI’s impact on work, society, and the ethical challenges it presents will be joined by employees of Europe’s largest IT company, SAP, and others at the forefront of business AI.
A link to detailed information and registration in TUMonline will be available shortly.
This module helps students explore how digital data shapes the world around us and how to think critically about the way data is collected, analyzed, and used. Students examine fundamental questions such as what data really tells us, how it can be used to understand or even change society, and how tools like data visualization and modeling fit into data-driven decision-making.
Detailed information and registration in TUMonline:
The module can be taken either as a lecture or as a lecture and seminar. It covers the following topics:
- Data Governance Act: data sharing; data altruism; data intermediaries
- Data Act: access to data; cloud switching; interoperability
- GDPR and foundations: policy, fundamental rights, history, and relevance; scope; data subjects, controllers, joint controllers, processors, and third parties; principles; principle of lawfulness; data subject rights; obligations of controllers and processors; third-country transfers; enforcement, remedies, liability authorities, and damages; data protection legislation for specific sectors and conflicts.
Detailed information and registration in TUMonline:
This module introduces students to key debates surrounding digitization’s impact on democracy and authoritarianism and situates these debates within broader debates regarding the global decline of democracy. Students compare and evaluate digitization’s positive and negative effects on democracy and authoritarianism and examine its ramifications for several important political dynamics. Furthermore, students envisage potential countermeasures to digitization’s adverse effects and devise potential strategies to capitalize on its positive effects.
Detailed information and registration in TUMonline:
Upon successful competition of this module, students will have a theoretical and practical understanding of methods of social network analysis, and will further be able to apply this knowledge to their own projects. Students will be able to: (1) collect, manipulate, and visualize network data, (2) apply methods of social network analysis, and (3) utilize existing packages in the Python programming language to analyze network data.
This module can be taken either as a lecture (3 ECTS) or as a lecture and seminar (6 ECTS). It provides a comprehensive understanding of open science principles, including open access, research data, and open-source projects, with a focus on democratizing knowledge. Through hands-on activities and case studies, you’ll gain practical skills to apply open science practices in your future career, contributing to a more inclusive and accessible knowledge economy.
A link to detailed information and registration in TUMonline will be available shortly.
AI agents are often predicted to be the next great advancement in digital technology. However, there’s considerable uncertainty about the nature of AI agents and how they can best complement human agency.
This seminar builds on the rich philosophical discussion of agency to clarify fundamental questions about AI agents, including: What is an agent, and what constitutes agency? What role do intentionality, consciousness, will, and understanding play in agency? Are AI agents complete agents on their own, or do they inherently depend on human agency? Are there fundamental limits to what they can do? How can AI agents best cooperate with human agents?
These questions will be discussed based on groundbreaking philosophical texts chosen by students from a list. Students can also suggest other texts of their interest. The seminar comprises both regular in-person meetings and exchanges with SAP employees working with AI agents in business contexts.The seminar examines AI’s transformative potential for business and society by exploring its unique relationship with language and meaning. We’ll draw on philosophical insights concerning key concepts such as digital, data, text, information, model, digitization, and computation, examining their relationship with interpretation, understanding, emotional experience, and other dimensions of lived experience. Some of our discussion of AI’s impact on work, society, and the ethical challenges it presents will be joined by employees of Europe’s largest IT company, SAP, and others at the forefront of business AI.
This module provides key knowledge in the philosophy and ethics of decision-making systems. The focus is on the ethical challenges arising from the use of data-driven and automated technologies in contemporary societies. Students analyze risks, potential discrimination, and questions of social responsibility in dealing with such systems. Using theoretical approaches and practical examples, the module promotes critical reflection on the influence of technological decision-making processes. It is aimed at students with varying levels of prior knowledge – both with and without a technical background – and does not require any programming skills.
Big Data is a highly political concept that is as multifaceted as it is contradictory. On the one hand, it underpins promises of more information, greater democratic capacity for action, and effective political governance. On the other hand, it fuels concerns about government and corporate surveillance, behavioral manipulation, and social control. The seminar analyzes “Big Data Politics” in all its complexity. It focuses on the thematic areas of the “data world,” “algorithmic control,” and “digital networking,” which are examined as societal challenges.
Topics include new technological developments such as predictive analytics, smart cities, and the Internet of Things. The seminar also examines the digital transformation of the political public sphere through social networks and the political challenges of data protection and informational self-determination. Changing power structures and questions of freedom, security, and the future conditions of democratic societies play a central role. Seminar discussions are based on relevant academic literature from political science, technology studies, and philosophy, which provides a critical and broader perspective on current developments in digitalization.
Detailed information and registration in TUMonline
This course introduces public interest technologies (PIT) as the study and application of technology expertise to advance the public interest. It addresses different dimensions of technology's interaction with large societal challenges and opportunities, including “data for good” and ethical AI. Through lectures, case studies, and interactive discussions, students will gain a deeper understanding of how technology can be created to serve the public interest and used responsibly and innovatively to tackle public problems.
Detailed information and registration in TUMonline
Generative AI is increasingly transforming human behavior, interaction, experience, sense-making, and thought. Its application raises numerous ethical questions. These ethical questions and the potential handling of AI depend heavily on the conception of AI. Is AI a kind of artificial being or merely a tool? Or does it alter human thought, experience, behavior, and existence in entirely new ways? We examine widespread but fundamentally different conceptions of AI and discuss their ethical consequences based on scientific articles and case studies.