Unlike most other cloud types, wispy and thin cirrus clouds are relatively transparent to solar radiation, but because they form at high altitudes and cold temperatures, they lead to a substantial longwave (warming) radiative effect on climate. Their net warming effect on climate led part of the research community to the idea of artificially decreasing the frequency and optical thickness of cirrus clouds by seeding them with ice nucleating particles. Cirrus seeding relies on the competition between two distinct cirrus formation pathways: homogeneous nucleation of soluble aerosols and heterogeneous ice crystal nucleation with the help of solid ice nucleating particles. Seeding attempts to transform optically thicker, longer lived homogeneously nucleated cirrus clouds to thinner and shorter lived heterogeneously nucleated cirrus clouds. However, it is unclear whether this would actually work. In this talk I will try to reconcile different modeling results, which show anything from a globally averaged cooling effect of about 2 W/m2 to no effect or even a warming effect on climate resulting from cirrus seeding. Furthermore, I will give a perspective on possible future research directions that may lead to better process understanding of cirrus clouds and their responses to aerosol perturbations.