Taming the Machines

Securing Knowledge

Recommender systems and personalisation algorithms, search engines and chatbots, big data and machine learning: digital technologies play an increasingly prominent role in the creation, collection, organisation, and dissemination of information in our digital world. These technologies have the potential to reshape our traditional practices and concepts of knowledge, to transform processes of learning and knowing. For example, personalised recommender systems have complemented, if not replaced, testimony from friends and expert opinion. Students increasingly depend on search engines for factual knowledge in lieu of rote learning, and scientists rely on big data and machine learning for novel insights.

These powerful technologies, however, also can be—and, indeed, have been—misused and abused: fake news and “alternative facts” are spread online via chatbots and trolls; personalisation may lead to filter bubbles and echo chambers; correlations are mistaken as causation in decision-making powered by data analytics. As a result, information technologies and data practices are challenging our basic understanding of 'knowledge' and related concepts such as truth, trust, reliability. 

If societies want to ensure that these new technologies and practices are conducive to our knowledge, it is essential to examine more closely these novel knowledge practices, their underlying assumptions and implications. This public lecture series invites internationally renowned scholars to discuss major epistemic questions related to information technologies.

Additional speakers may be added to the lecture series. To get the latest updates on the EIT Public Lecture series, please check here.

10.04.2019
Attention Economics and Rage Against the Machine [more] [pdf] [watch it]
Prof. Dr. Vincent F. Hendricks (University of Copenhagen)
Room ESA W 221

24.04.2019
Ethics and the Internet of Things [more] [pdf] [watch it]
Prof. Dr. Irina Shklovski (IT University of Copenhagen)
Room ESA-H

15.05.2019
Fake Facts and False Friends: Coping with the New Information Environments [more] [pdf] [watch it]
Prof. Dr. Katharina Kleinen-von Königslöw (Universität Hamburg)
Room ESA W 221

05.06.2019
People vs. Algorithms: Data Witchcraft and the Future of Data Activism [more] [pdf] [watch it]
Prof. Dr. Stefania Milan (University of Amsterdam)
Room ESA-J

19.06.2019
Fake News, False Beliefs, and the Fallible Art of Knowledge Maintenance [more] [pdf] [watch it]
Prof. Dr. Axel Gelfert (TU Berlin)
Room ESA W 221

03.07.2019
Autonomous Systems and Criminal Law – new impulses for the concept of responsibility? [more] [pdf] [watch it]
Prof. Dr. Susanne Beck (Leibniz Universität Hannover)
Room ESA W 221

Wednesday, 18:15-19:45
Westflügel, 2. OG, room W 221
(24.4.2019: main building ESA-H, 5.6.2019: main building ESA-J)
Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1
20146 Hamburg

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programme [pdf]

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site plans:

lecture halls at Edmund-Siemers Allee 1: ESA1 [pdf]

University of Hamburg (Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1 is number 12 in C3 of the map): UHH [pdf]

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robot image: pngimg.com, CC BY-NC 4.0, modified