28 May 2026
On May 11, 2026, Dr. Philipp Altmann successfully defended his dissertation, titled “Surrogate Modeling for Collective Intelligence,” thereby completing his doctoral degree.
© © Chair for Mobile and Distributed Systems
In his thesis, Philipp explored how surrogate models can support interoperability in mixed collectives – heterogeneous intelligent systems composed of diverse components that differ in how they compute, learn, perceive, and interact.
The central idea is that surrogate models are more than computational shortcuts – they can act as bridges, translators, feedback mechanisms, and interface layers that make mixed collectives more robust, adaptive, interpretable, and aligned.
The department congratulates Philipp on this achievement and thanks him for his outstanding and forward-looking work in the field of artificial intelligence.