The Lyceum Project, an international conference on philosophy and artificial intelligence, is held annually and has become a meeting point for distinguished scholars, professors, and researchers from around the world.

As part of this year’s conference, and in my capacity as a Research Fellow in AI Ethics at the Harvard University Center for Hellenic Studies, I had the honor of serving as the moderator of the Young Scholars’ Session – a particularly important part of the conference, dedicated to early-career researchers and holding a distinct place within the overall program.

The presentations by my fellow scholars were truly outstanding.

Below, I am sharing a selection of photographs from the conference, along with the text of my opening remarks

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Dear colleagues, distinguished guests, and friends,

I would like to welcome you to this year’s Lyceum Project Young Scholars’ Session.

My name is Giannis Perperidis. I am currently a Research Fellow in AI Ethics at the Center for Hellenic Studies at Harvard University, and I have the pleasure of serving as this year’s host for the Young Scholars’ Session.

It is a great honor for me to host this particular session because I genuinely support the idea of dedicating a space to scholars at the early stages of their careers – a space where they can present fresh ideas that may ultimately have an enormous impact on their fields. By institutionalizing this session, the Lyceum Project acknowledges something very important: that the next generation of thinkers and researchers is not simply the future of scholarship, but an indispensable part of its present.

I also think that this session carries a particularly timely message. In many parts of the world, research continues to face serious challenges, including underfunding and the persistent phenomenon of brain drain. Yet, despite these difficulties, the next generation of scholars continues to find ways forward. Through hard work, determination, and intellectual curiosity, young researchers manage not only to persevere but also to remain at the forefront of research and innovation.

To me, this is precisely what the Young Scholars’ Session reflects, and it is extremely important that the Lyceum Project has established it as a distinct session within its program. Judging from the quality and originality of the abstracts submitted by the four young scholars we have with us today, I can say with confidence that they could present their work at any conference. Yet they chose to participate in this particular session because it is not simply another conference panel where an interesting discussion takes place and ends there. Rather, it is a session that explicitly states that the next generation of researchers deserves to have a voice and a seat at the table, thereby recognizing and validating their efforts, often in the face of adverse circumstances.

So, as someone who is, technically speaking, still a young scholar myself, I would like to thank the committee of the Lyceum Project for conceiving and sustaining this initiative.

Thank you again for being here, and I hope you enjoy this year’s Lyceum Project Young Scholars’ Session.