Wolfgang Bibel

Bibel has worked in the fields of automated deduction, knowledge representation, architecture of deductive systems and inference, planning, learning, program synthesis, as well as on topics concerning the implications of AI technology for society. His most outstanding scientific contribution was his connection method, which allows logical conclusions to be drawn automatically in a very compact way. Bibel received the 2006 Herbrand Award for Distinguished Contributions to Automated Reasoning.

Contribution to Artificial Intelligence in Germany and Europe[edit]

Contrary to the difficulties at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), he continued his research in his field. The year 1975 can be regarded as the starting shot for artificial intelligence in Germany. Gerd Veenker called a meeting in Bonn in which Wolfgang Bibel and Wolfgang Wahlster also took part. As a result of the meeting they established the newsletter KI, which later became the magazine KI. The first six issues were issued by Hans-Hellmut Nagel. From the seventh issue onwards, Bibel took over for two years until 1998. During this time he received no support from TUM, so he had to do all the work. At the meeting it was also decided to set up a subcommittee for artificial intelligence in the technical committee Cognitive Systems in the Gesellschaft für Informatik, to which Bibel belonged as a member since 1975. The chairman was Hans-Hellmut Nagel, who at that time was the only professor on the highest level who confessed to artificial intelligence. This committee coordinated the establishment of artificial intelligence as a scientific discipline in Germany. Later, Bibel took over the role. He also held this position for the longest time. In 1975, he organized a workshop on automatic evidence, which was internationally acclaimed in science and business. The workshop was a precursor to today's German Conference on Artificial Intelligence. In 1982, together with Jörg Siekmann, he founded the two-week KI Spring School (KIFS), as the research results had not yet reached the students. This resulted in one of the first books on artificial intelligence in Germany, which brought students closer to the topic. Today the school is a permanent institution. In 1985 he also offered the first Advanced Course on AI (ACAI), the equivalent of the KIFS for Europe. This also resulted in another book. Bibel wanted to found a European organisation for artificial intelligence as early as 1979. 1982 saw the first European Conference on Artificial Intelligence and the founding of the European Coordinating Committee for Artificial Intelligence, today's European Association for Artificial Intelligence (EurAI). He became its first president. During the whole time he had no professorship and no support from TUM, because they refused it.


In 1975, the German Research Foundation (DFG) approved Bibel an application for a research grant. Bibel also procured several research projects for the TU Darmstadt, including the national priority program Deduction, which was approved in autumn 1991. The project led to Germany assuming a leading position in artificial intelligence.


At the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) in 1977, he presented with Nagel for the first time the situation of artificial intelligence in Germany. From 1986 to 1992 he was a member of the board of directors of IJCAI and from 1987 to 1989 its president. Bibel's influence at that time also led Japan to launch a research program for a whole decade, the Fifth Generation Computer Systems (FGCS).^[3] The research programme caused a great stir, which is why personalities from the world of politics attended the conference in Japan in 1979. Bibel represented Germany at the conference. The conference was followed by other major research programmes such as the European Strategic Programme for Research and Development in Information Technology and the Information Technology Programme funded by the Federal Ministry of Research and Technology (BMFT).


In 1984 Bibel turned to Franz-Josef Strauss to point out the growing importance of artificial intelligence. This led to the foundation of a Bavarian Research Center for Knowledge-Based Systems (BayWiss) in 1988. At the same time, the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence was founded and the Institute for Application-Oriented Knowledge Processing (IAW) was established in Baden-Wuerttemberg.


On April 23, 2018, he initiated the events that led to the launch of the CLAIRE (Confederation of Laboratories for Artificial Intelligence Research in Europe) initiative.^[6][7]