The digital transformation of the Austrian humanities and the challenges of the future: Structural perspectives for the integration of data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence

The Digital Humanities have long been concerned with how digital technologies can be used productively in the humanities, and have thus established themselves as an innovative field of research. Digital representations and statistical methods are constantly contributing to the critical review and reorientation of established approaches. This article traces the most important developments in this field of research in Austria and offers a critical outlook. For this purpose, the results of the research project “DiTAH” (Digital Transformation of Austrian Humanities, 2020-2024) are analyzed. It also considers the challenges for the university organization in integrating digital humanities into the broader field of humanities, where the organization of dedicated research centers have shown to be successful. The article concludes additionally that the interplay of domain-specific data with reflections on use cases of digital methods in the humanities in the DiTAH project has created very good conditions for mastering the challenges of the increased use of data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence in the humanities as well.