Gernot Blümel: A lecture on artificial intelligence and the future of Europe

In his guest article, Gernot Blümel provides an exciting look at the future that has long since begun.

We are on the threshold of a new era – the era of artificial intelligence. While technological innovations are advancing at breakneck speed, politics, society and philosophy are coming under increasing pressure to find answers to questions that once seemed purely theoretical. In his lecture, Gernot Blümel, former top politician, philosopher and manager of an international AI research park, sheds light on the far-reaching effects of artificial intelligence on our idea of being human, European identity in global competition and the ethical challenges of dealing with a technology that is about to fundamentally change our lives.

• What does reason mean when machines possess it?
• How is democracy defined when algorithms influence our decisions?
• And how can Europe take a leading role in this new age?

Gernot Blümel about his lecture:

“When school children learn about our time in history lessons 100 years from now, their books will not mention who the Chancellor of Austria or Germany, or the President of the European Commission was. Their books will state that our time was the birth of ‘Artificial Intelligence’.

Utopians claim it is the solution to all our problems (climate change, poverty, disease, loneliness, …). The apocalyptics believe it will destroy humanity. In one point, both agree: it will fundamentally change our lives and society.

In the coming years, media coverage of topics related to AI will steadily grow. While it is still mostly limited to economic and technical aspects today, there will hardly be a field in the future that does not need to be completely rethought: How will education work in the future? What is art in the AI era? What defines humanity when its rationality is no longer unique? Will there need to be robot rights, in addition to animal rights, if they are intelligent? What exactly is ‘intelligence’? What does it mean to ‘understand’?

As a philosophy graduate, I am fascinated by the fact that almost all fundamental questions of western intellectual history seem to need to be re-posed with the birth of AI. How do we define our humanity when what we have been proud of for two and a half thousand years in distinction to other living beings on the planet, our cognitive abilities, our intelligence, is an area where AI seems to soon surpass us? Does it need a new definition of humanity? Ultimately, human rights, democracy, and liberal states of Western character are based on the ideal of potential rationality.

As a former top-level politician, the necessary accompanying measures due to the upcoming disruption of our society make my head spin. At the same time, other continents like North America or especially Asia, particularly China, are positioning themselves as pioneers in the field of artificial intelligence. What is the position of the European Union in this new technical global order? What impact does this have on the citizens of the European Union?

As the manager of the MARE TechnoPark, a research park for AI in digital medicine, I am interested in innovation and technical possibilities through artificial intelligence. As well as challenges and difficulties in practice when implementing and building a research operation with data and AI, especially in the medical field in an international environment.”

Further topics of my lectures are

• Fundamental values of the EU and their challenges today

Fundamental European values such as democracy and human rights are not God-given, they are products of Western culture. The liberal constitutional state, which is the basis for the peace and prosperity project of Europe, lives from basic prerequisites that it too often ignores today.

• The necessity of prosperity for the stability of democracy in Europe

As with climate change, where exceeding tipping points has irreversible consequences, the same applies to democracies: if prosperity is permanently undermined, social trust in the democratic order is jeopardized – a connection that is often underestimated or suppressed in Europe.

• Why the transatlantic rift is not as new as everyone makes it out to be and why Trump is sometimes right

You can almost set the clock by this: with every US president from the ranks of the Republicans, a murmur of indignation goes through the European media landscape. Yet the transatlantic divide has long been a deep one, regardless of who is in the White House. What are the reasons for this?

• Socio-political lessons from the coronavirus crisis, apart from the usual domestic political hiccups

The pandemic will keep us busy dealing with it for longer than we think. After all, it is the last collective event of our time. What social imprints have we taken with us from this time that have so far been given too little consideration in the general mutual blame game?

Would you like to know more about Gernot Blümel or book him directly for an event? Contact us: +1 (704) 804 1054 or welcome@premium-speakers.com