Making sense of the digital society

In order to understand the impact of digitalisation on our society, it helps to look to the past to understand the development of digitalisation as part of cultural history. At the same time, by considering future scenarios, we can recognize our current responsibility for helping to shape the digital society.

From the flow of news to the financial market, our lives are influenced on a wide variety of levels by the use and impact of platforms. How do these platforms work and is it possible to regulate them? Are there counterforces against their sphere of influence?

Artificial intelligence and algorithms are influencing our lives in unprecedented ways. Therefore, it is more important than ever to understand the mechanisms behind these developments and to address ethical issues of AI.

Digitalisation is transforming public life and politics, just like social and political communication - what developments are these changes leading to? How are our basic democratic values, the flow of information and political participation evolving?

The digitalisation of our world is bringing about a multitude of changes in our society: from the way we handle data to our social system to our economic and social order. What do these developments mean for fundamental principles such as equality and fairness? How can we understand the use of technologies that are becoming increasingly efficient but less accessible to the human mind?

Digital technologies and platform models are fundamentally changing our economic system. The processing and use of our data through digitalisation has led to new forms of revenue and economic models and thus to new power structures and a new form of capitalism.

Digital technologies and processes are an increasingly important aspect of our society's infrastructure. What social values do they embody and how can we use digitisation for sustainability and the climate?