Yesterday I was invited to take part in one of their regular debate formats called “Fokus”. It took place in the Microsoft Digital Eatery in Berlin. The title was “Mensch, Maschine” – perhaps best translated as “Our machine Future”. I gave a kick-off speech about some ideas from my latest books “The analogue revolution” and “The Anthropocene”:
#1 In the Anthropocene, technology and its side effects become so ubiquitous that they begin to form a new sort of nature – technature.
#2 For the next years, not the emerging AI itself is most important but the power structures that help bring it about and will rule it
#3 The co-evolution of humans and technology has entered a new phase. If we want “digital humanism” we need to start now. Otherwise technology might become totalitarian or develop without humans.

I shared the panel with Enno Park, head of Germany’s Cyborg Association, Raúl Rojas, Professor for Informatics, and Artificial Intelligence, Free University Berlin, Janina Sombetzki, technology philosopher from Christian-Albrechts-University in Kiel, Klaus Wiegerling, Institute for technology assessment and systems analysis at Karlsruher Institute for Technology. Presenter Janine Tychsen.

Short statements in German can be found here.

Copyright for all photos: Carsten Kolbe-Weber