Digital Technology transforms the world, from the individual level up to the ongoing geo-political powerplay. From an ontological point of view, it influences how we perceive the world and how we think about it. This transformation process started relatively recently and continues at a very high speed. We highlight some features of this process, which, besides its enormous achievements, shows also serious shortcomings and risks. The key issue arising is a two-sided one : Digital technology, currently spearheaded by AI, may help deal with some of the world’s multiple crises and make it a better place. At the same time it is part of some these crises (some even see it as the cause). We understand Digital Humanism as an approach to developing and regulating digital technologies so that they are used for the benefit of people and nature. It is a proactive approach that focuses on the integration of technical policy and social innovation for the collective good.

Groups of 2-3 students select one of the following use cases:

Public Lecture by Virginia Dignum
Reception hosted by IWM afterwards.

I will explain a distinction between words and text we didn't need before but which we now need with today's automatic text generators. And I will explain another distinction we need to make between Artificial Flower AI and Artificial Light AI: Generative AI is a kind of Artificial Flower AI.

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Many nations develop their national AI strategies and establish AI governance models in ways that match their legal frameworks and existing regulations. This lecture first sets the stage with the findings of Center for AI and Digital Policy (CAIDP)'s annual index "AI and Democratic Values." The Index analyzes 80 countries for their strategies, practices and implementation of shared democratic norms. This will be followed by a discussion on the governance approaches, and a deeper dive into US, EU and Japan models will provide participants with alternative model perspectives.

Digital Identity Systems are on the rise worldwide. While global majority countries already have ample experience with their pitfalls and human rights implications, Europe just concluded its big digital identity reform without any concern for the experiences of other regions. Thomas Lohninger works for Austrias biggest digital rights NGO epicenter.works and has shaped the 2,5 year negotiations for the new EU law. This presentation will showcase realistic use-cases of the technology from age verification, online identification, customer tracking up to replacing CAPTCHAs. We will discuss essentials safeguards that attempt to make such systems of government certified personal data exchanges less dangerous in a world of surveillance capitalism and rising authoritarianism. The speaker lead the NGO coalition of privacy watchdogs that advocated for strong human rights safeguards in the EU legislation. He since became Chair of the UN DPI-safeguards Governance Working Group, advices the EU Commission on the technical specification of the new system, is in the Jury of the German government about their Wallet implementation. This talk tries to bridge the technical, legal and social implications of such systems and how society might be shaped by what some are calling the operating system of modern society.

Technologies – digital and otherwise – are gendered in their design and use. This session will explore what is at stake with this assertion. Drawing on examples from her own and other research, Wyatt will discuss how digital technologies can reinforce existing roles and stereotypes of women, of different ages and ethnicities. She will also explore the possibilities of designing digital futures informed by intersectional feminist principles.

TBA Magdalena Ortiz on AI

I have spent the last 5 years working on a documentary film about the fight against fake news and disinformation. I accompanied investigative journalists from the New York Times and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists as well as computer scientists from UCLA and UC Berkeley who have built software that can autonomously detect conspiracy theories online. They are working closely with neuroscientists from UCLA, whose research with epilepsy patients has revealed a lot about how information is processed in the brain at the level of individual neurones.

HOW TO BUILD A TRUTH ENGINE took me on a journey from the information battlefields of our time into the innermost recesses of our brains, during which two things became increasingly clear:

First, those who can hack our information feed, can hack our mind.

Second, if we lose our grip of the truth, we will lose our civilisation.

Friedrich Moser

Watch Trailer

Global Perspectives 1

Global Perspectives 2

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Global Governance of AI – on the Interim Report of the UN AI Advisory Body

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Project presentation