On December 12 and 13, FAIRagro – along with KIDA, nfdi4health and the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) – co-organized the symposium “Linked Data in the Age of Generative Artificial Intelligence – New Perspectives or Outdated Vision?” at the BfR in Berlin.
The aim of the event was to strengthen networking between the diverse linked data community and its initiatives and to assess the relevance of linked data in the age of generative AI. To this end, linked data lighthouses from the fields of agriculture, nutrition, health and other areas were presented and discussed in exciting presentations and there was the opportunity to try out various software tools in practice.
FAIRagro had four representatives on site: Ulrike Stahl presented the consortium, the objectives, the status quo and linked data approaches in our work. Daniel Martini and Nils Reinosch presented the use of linked data approaches at KTBL and explained a case study in FAIRagro. Carsten Hoffmann joined Konrad Förstner from NFDI4Microbiota in a lively panel discussion on the application and significance of linked data and knowledge graphs from the perspective of the NFDI and research data management.
The participants agreed that, even in the age of AI, linked data procedures are important tools for handling research data in a way that is both legally compliant and of high quality. Generative AI can be helpful in this context, but the corresponding results must continue to be treated with great scientific care. Linked data continues to offer enormous opportunities for research, but there is a risk that interest in it and knowledge about it will continue to decline in times of AI applications – a trend that must be taken into account to a greater extent in the future.