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Facing disinformation in democratic backsliding: the role of courts in Brazil
Full text linkThis paper examines how democratic institutions respond to disinformation when it is weaponized by elected officials for illiberal purposes. It focuses on the role of courts in countering disinformation in Brazil from 2018 to 2022, when the country experienced threats to democracy, marked by the use of disinformation to undermine electoral and judicial checks. In response, Brazil’s High Courts took an array of measures against disinformation, including content removal, social media regulation, and criminal proceedings. While these actions were crucial in promoting democratic resilience, they also raised concerns about judicial aggrandizement and its implications. The paper discusses the tension between the courts’ role in protecting democracy and their institutional limitations as well as the potential impact on the public perception of courts and freedom of expression, of having judges taking the leading role in fighting disinformation
TechDo Digest 2x2: June 2024
Full text linkThe TechDo Digest is the literature overview of the research group "Technology, Power and Domination" at the Weizenbaum Institute. Every two to three months, the group curates a list of relevant new publications within their field, focussing on analyses of structures of power and domination in digitalized societies, changes to democratic processes, regulation of and through technology, and the contestation of digital technologies. This edition features articles that appeared between March and May 2024.The Weizenbaum Institute is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF
Erweiterung der Horizonte oder Erosion menschlicher Kompetenz?
Full text linkDie Verbreitung von generativen KI-Anwendungen (GKI) in der Arbeitswelt führt zu weitläufigen Spekulationen über die Zukunft der Arbeit. In diesem Policy Brief formulieren wir auf Grundlage theoretischer Überlegungen und erster empirischer Eindrücke Thesen über das Verhältnis von GKI und Arbeit, die zugleich als Hypothesen des Forschungsprojekts GENKIA dienen, in denen wir die Veränderungen von Arbeit in Programmierung, Journalismus, Marketing, Personalmanagement und öffentlicher Verwaltung empirisch untersuchen. Die Thesen lauten:
(1) Trotz technischer Durchbrüche stellt GKI kein Äquivalent zu menschlicher Intelligenz dar;
(2) GKI wird durch menschliche Arbeit nutzbar;
(3) GKI stellt eine neue Qualität der Interaktion zwischen Mensch und Maschine dar;
(4) Die Einführung von GKI macht Arbeit;
(5) Generative KI erfordert neue Antworten im Sinne guter Arbeit.Das Weizenbaum-Institut ist ein Verbundprojekt und wird vom Bundesministerium für
Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) und dem Land Berlin gefördert.Das Forschungsprojekt „Generative Künstliche Intelligenz in der Arbeitswelt“ (GENKIA) wird vom Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin in Kooperation mit dem Weizenbaum-Institut und dem Alexander von Humboldt Institut für Internet und Gesellschaft (HIIG) durchgeführt und vom Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Soziales (BMAS) finanziert
On the (im)possibility of sustainable artificial intelligence
Full text linkThe decline of ecological systems threatens global livelihoods and therefore increases injustice and conflict. In order to shape sustainable societies new digital tools like artificial intelligence (AI) are currently considered a “game-changer” by many within and outside of academia. In order to discuss the theoretical concept as well as the concrete implications of 'sustainable AI' this article draws from insights by critical data and algorithm studies, STS, transformative sustainability science, critical computer science, and, more remotely, public interest theory. I argue that while there are indeed many sustainability-related use cases for AI, they are far from being “game-changers” and are likely to have more overall drawbacks than benefits.
To substantiate this claim, I differentiate three 'AI materialities' of the AI supply chain: first the literal materiality (e.g. water, cobalt, lithium, energy consumption etc.), second, the informational materiality (e.g. lots of data and centralised control necessary), and third, the social materiality (e.g. exploitative global data worker networks, communities heavily affected by waste and pollution). Effects are especially devastating in the global south while the benefits mainly actualize in the global north. Analysing the claimed benefits further, the project of sustainable AI mainly follows a technology-centred efficiency paradigm, although most literature concludes heavy digital rebound effects in the past and also in the future.
A second strong claim regarding sustainable AI circles around so called apolitical optimisation (e.g. regarding city traffic), however the optimisation criteria (e.g. cars, bikes, emissions, commute time, health) are purely political and have to be collectively negotiated before applying AI optimisation. Hence, sustainable AI, in principle, cannot break the glass ceiling of transformation and might even distract from necessary societal change. Although AI is currently primarily used for misinformation, surveillance, and desire creation, I close the article by introducing two constructive concepts for sustainable and responsible AI use, if there is no societal will to refrain from using AI entirely.
First, we need to stop applying AI to analyse sustainability-related data, if the related scientific insights available already allow for sufficient action. I call using AI for the sake of creating non-action-related findings unformation gathering, which must be stopped. Secondly, we need to apply the small is beautiful principle, which means to refrain from using very large AI models and instead turn to tiny models or just to advanced statistics. This approach nicely covers virtually all actual AI use cases, is orders of magnitude less resource hungry and does not promote power centralisation as large models do. This article intends to further the academic critical AI discourse at the nexus between useful AI use cases, techno-utopian salvation narratives, the exploitative and extractivist character of AI and concepts of digital degrowth. It aims to contribute to an informed academic and collective negotiation on how to (not) integrate AI into the sustainability project while avoiding to reproduce the status quo by serving hegemonic interests.This work was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) under grant no. 16DII131 (“Deutsches Internet-Institut”)
Idea generation in exploitative and explorative business process redesign techniques
Full text linkBusiness process redesign has received considerable attention in research and practice. An important task contributing to redesign is idea generation. It has been argued that the choice of technique influences redesign outcomes, but empirical evidence is largely missing. In this paper, we examine the role of idea generation in business process redesign by comparing two different kinds of techniques: exploitative and explorative redesign techniques. Often, exploitative techniques are expected to yield more appropriate solutions, while explorative techniques are associated with more creative outcomes. To investigate such propositions, we consider the Best Practices of Process Redesign as an example of an exploitative redesign technique and the Business Process Design Space as an explorative redesign technique. We conducted a free-simulation experiment to study the empirical impact of the choice of redesign techniques on outcomes. We find that the Business Process Design Space leads to a higher number of redesign ideas, which are also more diverse. These are more creative and novel than ideas produced by the Best Practices of Process Redesign. Against expectation, the best practices as an exploitative approach do not produce more appropriate nor impactful ideas in our task design. Since both approaches cover different areas of improvement, a key implication of our work is that they should not be seen as isolated approaches to redesign; rather, they should be purposefully combined to not only create novel but also operational business process redesigns
Digital Sovereignty
Full text linkThe term “digital sovereignty” has become an integral part of current political discourse. Across party lines and administrative levels, there is consensus: Being digitally sovereign is desirable and important. However, it often remains unclear what it actually means to be digitally sovereign and how this desirable state should be achieved. Nearly every digital policy measure could be justified and rhetorically polished with the goal of digital sovereignty. Still, digital sovereignty is more than a meaningless buzzword. It allows us to experience the political dimensions of digital infrastructures in many facets. It clarifies the political dimensions of digital infrastructures and points us towards the scopes of action in which we ourselves can shape our digital future in a self-determined way. To illustrate digital sovereignty in its entirety, this compact overview addresses three central questions
Weizenbaum Panel’s Literature Digest: January 2024
No full textDer Literatur Digest ist eine monatlich erscheinende Zusammenstellung des aktuellen Forschungsstandes zu Themen an der Schnittstelle zwischen Digitalisierung und Politik. Er präsentiert die neuesten Erkenntnisse zu Fragen der politischen Partizipation und guter Bürgerschaft in Zeiten der Digitalisierung.
Zusätzlich zum PDF bieten wir den Digest im BibTeX-Austauschformat an.The Literature Digest is a monthly compilation of the current state of research on topics at the nexus of digitalization and politics. It presents the latest findings on issues of political participation and good citizenship in times of digitalization.
In addition, we provide this Literature Digest as BibTeX file.This work has been funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) (grant no.: 16DII111, 16DII112, 16DII113, 16DII114, 16DII115, 16DII116, 16DII117 – „Deutsches Internet-Institut“
Beware: Processing of Personal Data—Informed Consent Through Risk Communication
Full text linkThe General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has been applicable since May 2018 and aims to further harmonize data protection law in the European Union. Processing personal data based on individuals’ consent is lawful under the GDPR only if such consent meets certain requirements and is “informed,” in particular. However, complex privacy notice design and individual cognitive limitations challenge data subjects’ ability to make elaborate consent decisions. Risk-based communication may address these issues.
**Literature review:** Most research focuses on isolated aspects of risk in processing personal data, such as the actors involved, specific events leading to risk formation, or distinctive (context-dependent) consequences. We propose a model combining these approaches as the basis for context-independent risk communication.
**Research questions:** 1. What are relevant information categories for risk communication in the processing of personal data online? 2. Which potentially adverse consequences can arise from specific events in the processing of personal data online? 3. How can consequences in the processing of personal data be avoided or mitigated?
**Research methodology:** The GDPR was examined through a systematic qualitative content analysis. The results inform the analysis of 32 interviews with privacy, data protection, and information security experts from academia, Non-Governmental Organizations, the public, and the private sector.
**Results:** Risk-relevant information categories, specific consequences, and relations between them are identified, along with strategies for risk mitigation. The study concludes with a specified framework for perceived risk in processing personal data.
**Conclusion:** The results provide controllers, regulatory bodies, data subjects, and experts in the field of professional communication with information on risk formation in personal data processing. Based on our analysis, we propose information categories for risk communication, which expand the current regulatory information requirements.This work was supported in part by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under Grant 16DII131, and in part by the Open Access Publication Fund of the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society, Berli
Understanding scholar-trajectories across scientific periodicals
Full text linkDespite the rapid growth in the number of scientific publications, our understanding of author publication trajectories remains limited. Here we propose an embedding-based framework for tracking author trajectories in a geometric space that leverages the information encoded in the publication sequences, namely the list of the consecutive publication venues for each scholar. Using the publication histories of approximately 30,000 social media researchers, we obtain a knowledge space that broadly captures essential information about periodicals as well as complex (inter-)disciplinary structures of science. Based on this space, we study academic success through the prism of movement across scientific periodicals. We use a measure from human mobility, the radius of gyration, to characterize individual scholars' trajectories. Results show that author mobility across periodicals negatively correlates with citations, suggesting that successful scholars tend to publish in a relatively proximal range of periodicals. Overall, our framework discovers intricate structures in large-scale sequential data and provides new ways to explore mobility and trajectory patterns
Stellungnahme zum BMBF-Eckpunktepapier für ein Forschungsdatengesetz
Full text linkDas Weizenbaum-Institut begrüßt das vom Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) vorgelegte Eckpunktepapier zum Forschungsdatengesetz. Damit es zum Wohle der Allgemeinheit wirksam werden kann, sollte es den Bedarfen der öffentlich geförderten Forschung angemessen sein.
Das Weizenbaum-Institut möchte mit der vorliegenden Stellungnahme hierzu einen Beitrag leisten. Im Folgenden wird deshalb zu den Datenbedarfen der Forschung, der Auffindbarkeit von Forschungsdaten, dem Zugang zu und die Verknüpfung von Forschungsdaten, den Ressourcen und der Anerkennung für die Forschung sowie Verbesserungen im Datenschutzrecht Stellung genommen.Diese Arbeit wurde durch das Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) gefördert (Förderkennzeichen: 16DII121, 16DII122, 16DII123, 16DII124, 16DII125, 16DII126, 16DII127, 16DII128 – „Deutsches Internet-Institut“)