The Polis Digitalis Series starts with an interview of influential MEP Brando Benefei by distinguished journalist Janis Brühl.
Speaker: Brando Benifei, Member of the European Parliament, Italy
Interviewed by: Jannis Brühl, Teamleiter Team Geld, Arbeit, Tech, Süddeutsche Zeitung
From the attempts by the Trump administration and the Big Tech oligarchs to cancel or weaken EU digital regulation to the Greenland developments and the publication of the new US security strategy, we are witnessing concerted attacks which constitute a real and present existential danger for the EU.
Will the EU stand strong and united in this “moment of truth” or will it backslide towards a loose gathering of weak states where Big Tech can survey their platforms and AI applications with no rules or guardrails and with total impunity ?
This is about dignity and independence versus digital, and not only, vassalage.
Brando Benifei is an active and influential member of the European Parliament and, most pertinently for today’s event, after having served as a co-rapporteur of the AI Act is now the chair of the EP delegation for relations with the United States.
Jannis Brühl is one of Germany’s leading journalists and heads the digital and finance team at Süddeutsche Zeitung.
About the Series
The Polis Digitalis talk is a monthly event offering discussions with worldwide digital policy makers. It is typically held on Tuesday afternoons at 17:00 CET.
The world is at a critical turning point as the extremely rapid development digitalization spearheaded by AI constitutes a technological and associated societal and economic transformation which affects and is affected by a (geo)political upheaval – with great potential benefits, but also equally great dangers.
The goal of the Polis Digitalis-talks is to bring together policy makers, journalists and academics to discuss the most recent actual or foreseen developments of policy decisions for the digital sphere, reflect on their impact, raise awareness in civil society at large and, when deemed suitable, formulate our own proposals in the spirit of Digital Humanism.
The bidt and the TU Wien are cooperation partners for the DIGHUM lecture series.
Digital Humanism deals with the complex relationship between man and machine. It acknowledges the potential of Informatics and IT. At the same time, it points to related apparent threats such as privacy violations, ethical concerns with AI, automation, loss of jobs, and the ongoing monopolisation on the Web.
For this reason, a new initiative — DIGHUM lectures — started with regular online events to discuss the different aspects of Digital Humanism.
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Archive and Resources of Lecture Series