Making AI empathic – ERC Starting Grant for Prof. Dr. Lucie Flek

By the Starting Grant, the European Research Council (ERC) supports excellent scientists at the beginning of their careers. The award is endowed with 1.5 million euros and will enable to carry out the selected research project over the next five years. Prof. Dr. Flek prevailed in the highly competitive selection process and will provide important impetus in computer science with her research. Furthermore, Jun.-Prof. Dr. Amelie Schiprowski (economics) and Dr. Moritz Lürig (evolutionary biology) from the University of Bonn also received ERC Starting Grants.

Object of research: Artificial Social Intelligence

AI systems such as ChatGPT are increasingly influencing our daily decisions, whether it's coping with mental health issues or obtaining information. However, these systems often fail precisely in moments when empathy, judgment, and social understanding are most important. This is where the “LLMpathy” project comes in, led by Prof. Dr. Lucie Flek from the Data Science and Language Technologies Group at the b-it and the Institute of Computer Science at the University of Bonn. Its goal: to make AI not only smarter, but also more socially intelligent. The ERC is going to fund her project with 1.5 million Euros over five years.

“Today's AI can imitate empathy, but it doesn't really understand it,” says Lucie Flek, who also conducts research at the b-it and the Lamarr Institute. She therefore wants to establish a scientific basis for what researchers refer to as social intelligence in AI: “We want to systematically investigate how personal characteristics such as values, personality, or empathy shape behavior in social situations – and how AI can map and explain these patterns.”

To achieve this, Flek will combine long-term psychological studies, game-based data collection, advanced learning methods in AI, and explainable AI methods to develop more reliable and socially intelligent AI systems. “These models can be used to guide AI decisions in high-risk social scenarios such as conflict resolution, negotiations, and mental health support.”

Flek combines human data with the development and evaluation of AI, thereby creating a transparent feedback loop between humans and machines. “This enables AI to explain why it has made a particular suggestion, based on the information it has about the person it is talking to,” explains the computer scientist.

LLMpathy also serves to protect users: it helps to identify when AI systems use personalization in an unethical way, for example to emotionally pressure someone into making a purchase or to spread misinformation tailored to their fears. “We need to understand how personalization works in order to protect people from its misuse,” said Flek. “LLMpathy gives us the tools to do that.” The goal of the project is to develop open-source tools, benchmarks, and simulation platforms to ensure that future AI meets high standards of transparency, trustworthiness, and ethical behavior – in line with the EU's upcoming AI Act.

Previous research

Prof. Dr. Lucie Flek heads the Data Science and Language Technologies group at the Bonn-Aachen International Center for Information Technology (b-it). She is co-opted professor at the Computer Science Department at the University of Bonn and a member of the Transdisciplinary Research Areas (TRA) "Modeling" and "Matter". Besides she is part of the University of Bonn's Cluster of Excellence "Our Dynamic Universe" which will launch in January 2026. As Area Chair for Natural Language Processing (NLP) at the Lamarr Institute for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, she combines this work with her research on reasoning language models (Reasoning LLMs), AI safety, and AI for science. Flek has worked in both academia and industry, for example for Amazon Alexa and Google Shopping Search in Europe. At the University of Pennsylvania and University College London, she conducted research on modeling users based on text and applications of such AI models in psychology and the social sciences.

About ERC

With the ERC Starting Grant, the ERC supports researchers of all nationalities with two to seven years of experience since completing their doctorate. Applicants must have a promising scientific track record and submit an outstanding project proposal on behalf of their host institution. Applicants do not need to be employed by the host institution at the time of application, but if the application is successful, a mutual agreement and commitment are required. Funding is typically awarded for five years, with grants of up to €1.5 million.

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