On 3-4 November 2025, Doctoral Candidates Katerina Drakos and Eva Paraschou participated in the AI in Science Summit 2025 (AIS25) in Copenhagen, Denmark. The summit served as a premier gathering for scientists, industry leaders, investors and policymakers to discuss how AI is revolutionising scientific discovery and how Europe can spearhead this shift through a responsible, values-driven approach.
Our alignAI DCs engaged in keynote lectures and interactive workshops centred on themes such as Life Science, Society and Community, Science for AI, and AI Policy. A major highlight was the keynote by Professor Yoshua Bengio, a global pioneer in deep learning. He addressed the critical need for safe AI applications in science, specifically warning against risks in AI alignment such as in-context scheming, alignment faking and the potential for large language models (LLMs) to act as “insider threats”. Another significant milestone was the launch of the RAISE initiative (The Resource for AI Science in Europe), which seeks to provide European researchers with expanded access to computational power, high-quality data and dedicated funding.
In addition to attending these sessions, Katerina and Eva presented their poster, “The Cost-Benefit of Interdisciplinarity in AI for Mental Health”. The poster was based on a peer-reviewed paper co-authored with Simay Toplu, which is currently available on the AIS25 website and arXiv. In this work, Katerina, Eva and Simay examine the cost-benefit trade-off of interdisciplinary collaboration throughout the development of AI mental health chatbots. By analysing the chatbot lifecycle, they argue that integrating expertise from technology, healthcare, ethics and law is essential, not only for value-alignment but also to comply with the “high-risk” mandates of the EU AI Act. To support researchers, they offer practical frameworks to help balance the friction of interdisciplinary work with its long-term societal benefits.
During the poster session, both DCs actively networked with fellow researchers and exchanged insights on their respective findings. Overall, it was a highly rewarding experience that allowed our DCs to receive valuable feedback on their research, expand their professional networks and engage in thought-provoking discussions with experts at the forefront of the field.