I was born in Dubrovnik, but I guess for our purposes we can start somewhere around 2003, when I decided to enroll at a vocational college to become an IT assistant – and in parallel completed my university entrance qualification (Abitur) in Cologne, Germany. This is when and where I learned programming, electrical engineering, digital electronics, and Kafka. After this four-year track, I decided to leave computer science for a while and started studying classical languages (I started with Latin, quickly learnt that Ancient Greek was unavoidable, but we only became friends later), philosophy, German literature, and some metaphysical topics. The things you do when entering your twenties.
During that time, I got a bit obsessed with languages in general. I now speak German, Croatian, and English and back then I also completed the first part of ancient Hebrew. The quote-unquote cool part of studying classical languages is that you also learn about the roots of languages. This ultimately led me into the sphere of Indo-European linguistics. Of course, I had to learn about the Germanic, Slavic, and Italic languages (and a few others). I studied etymology, how the basic meanings of our words are structured, why our languages have their particular emphasis patterns (and how the German pattern differs from, say, the pattern in Mandarin), and, of course, I learned a lot of linguistics – and grammar. So much grammar. A notable figure at that time was Noam Chomsky. (He made a comeback later when I started studying computer science: Chomsky hierarchies.)
It was also during this time that I worked at the Cologne Papyrus Collection (University of Cologne): It. Was. Great. I came face-to-face with the famous Sappho Papyrus, saw the Mani Codex (which, when disassembled for restoration, looks like butterflies that burned their wings; very poetic, from a Kafka point of view), Bible manuscripts, and a piece from Plato’s corpus. In parallel, I also worked at the Thomas Institute at the University of Cologne, which specializes in medieval philosophy. And yes, I did learn a bit about Averroes, but mostly I learned quite a bit about microfilm digitization. Let’s put it this way: it was a time when I had the opportunity to listen extensively to good music while doing a job.
After a few years, I started reading Immanuel Kant's works on time and space and became interested in physics. I had the – somewhat fantastic – opportunity to talk to someone working on the black hole Sagittarius A*, who, of course, knew a lot about physics. After this very vivid conversation, I was so amazed by how much a person can know – both philosophically and physically – that I decided to study physics too. Plenty of projects, right? Time to collect some degrees: I completed German Literature & Linguistics (still heavily involved in metaphysical thinking), got a Master's of Education (1. Staatsexamen), and a Bachelor's degree in Latin and Philosophy – and moved to Munich.
Meanwhile, I ended my work at the Cologne Papyrus Collection and started a job in first-level user support ("My printer doesn't work."-related work) at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne. (I know, I know: but if you've made it this far in the text, not much can surprise you anymore, can it?) After moving to Munich, I worked as a programming assistant at the Data Center of the Max Planck Society, moving from hexameter to hexadecimal. In Munich, I continued my studies in physics and enrolled in a Master's program in Theoretical Philosophy. Eventually, however, I either remembered my roots in computer science or simply realized that physics is a very jealous discipline that doesn’t tolerate distractions, so I switched to computer science and ended my physics studies (shame, I know).
Again: plenty of projects, so let's finish them: I obtained my Master’s degree in Theoretical Philosophy and my Master’s degree in Computer Science/Computational Linguistics at LMU Munich. Vergil might have said tantae molis erat Romanam condere gentem (Verg. Aen. 1,33) — but my name doesn't fit the metric, and I’m not founding a nation (yet).
In 2015, I became interested in Artificial Intelligence. I started thinking about consciousness, and whether our theories could ever allow for the mechanical construction of processes we observe in living beings. Back then, many people told me AI wasn’t an interesting subject for philosophy. So, who’s laughing now? (Answer: They are. They’re still laughing. Because they have tenure.)
In the end, I started a position at a philosophy chair at LMU Munich and wrote my doctoral dissertation between LMU Munich and ETH Zurich, supervised by both a philosopher and a computer scientist. I tried to figure out whether semantics is necessary for exhibiting behavior (or, in the case of machines, functionality) that can be interpreted as moral. I focused on reinforcement learning algorithms. (You're still thinking about the papyri, right? Yeah, me too.)
In parallel, I worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Munich for 1.5 years as an Associate in the Risk Assurance Services division. I learned a lot about the many avenues human nature can take in the course of professional life. I also did independent consulting: advising the German Association of the Automotive Industry on autonomous driving and the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering on mobility innovation ethics. Again: I learned a lot about human nature’s receptiveness to different context and ideas.
After finishing my dissertation, I consulted for the University of Luxembourg during the formation of a Digital Ethics Center and started a postdoctoral project at Münster University, working on epistemology and neuromorphic hardware. Over time, I realized that hardware needed to be a key focus: After all, it's the hardware doing the actual work in a machine. Thus, I shifted toward a field blending neuroscience, biology, hardware design, and the philosophy of mind/epistemology. After two years, I started my current position at Heidelberg University at the Neuromorphic Quantumphotonics Group. There, I developed ideas about how we should view machine functionality (controlled activity) differently from human behavior.
Meanwhile, I also completed a postdoc project at LMU Munich on ethically safe AI systems (in collaboration with the Fraunhofer Institute for Cognitive Systems) and am currently completing a postdoc at the Humboldt Professorship for AI (Leipzig University) on the theory of artificial neural networks.
In 2024, I had a formative research stay at NYU in New York. Never in my life have I felt so embraced by a city – or so little like a foreigner. I wasn’t sure why. While there, I read Max Frisch, talked with plenty of people from the philosophy department, and also with a few scientists from the neuroscience labs. One professor gave me one of the best pieces of career advice I’ve ever received: He said I should perhaps see myself more as a cognitive scientist. I could still do philosophy and neuromorphic hardware, but I should broaden my view. At that time, publishing seemed impossible: all my papers were being declined. So I started sending my work to science journals — and they accepted them. Let’s see where this will end. Perhaps in a papyrus collection.