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The Problem of Sustainable AI: A Critical Assessment of an Emerging Phenomenon
Full text linkRecently, the notion of “sustainable Artificial Intelligence (AI)” has gained traction. The contention is that AI technologies hold promise for addressing climate challenges by providing sustainable solutions. In that way, sustainable AI is supposed to harness AI’s capabilities while upholding ethical standards and minimizing its resources use, such as its carbon footprint. In answer to this recent trend, this paper critically questions the very conception of sustainable AI. Drawing on philosophy of technology and critical materialist thinking, it aims to uncover the dominant interests and hegemonic narratives driving sustainable AI developments.
The paper begins by outlining the concept of sustainable AI. It then explores the hegemonic power structures and socio-economic dynamics behind AI technologies. Concretely, I show how the promises of sustainable AI largely rely on narratives of efficiency and progress, and work by invoking myths and images of a super-intelligence saving humanity. Following this, I highlight that sustainable AI is the technical solution to the climate crisis from a techno-solutionist vantage point simply reproducing the status quo. The enthusiasm for sustainable AI primarily serves hegemonic interests, rather than genuinely aiming for resource-friendly and ethical solutions. The paper concludes with the observation that if we want true climate action, sustainable AI is not the way to go.This publication has been funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF) (grant no.: 16DII121, 16DII122, 16DII123, 16DII124, 16DII125, 16DII126, 16DII127, 16DII128 – “Deutsches Internet-Institut”)
Educational Impulses for Redesigning (Online) Teaching in the Post-Pandemic World: A Discussion and Evaluation of Lessons Learned
Full text linkThis article reflects on the challenge of online teaching from the perspective of media didactics, a perspective that gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic. The qualitative-reconstructive study reflects on 65 multidisciplinary papers written during the pandemic. Together, these studies empirically examine the challenges, achievements, and failures of the first large-scale experiment in university teaching during that time and include quantitative empirical studies and qualitative first-hand accounts from university lectures that document how scholars adapted their courses from on-campus teaching to online teaching. Many approaches are innovative and creative, while some are not really new, at least from the perspective of media education. Still, many teachers with limited exposure to media-based or online teaching pre-pandemic broke new ground in their individual teaching. Of course, learning is an individual process. Nevertheless, expectations that university teaching would be fundamentally redesigned were almost inevitably destined for disappointment due to the pandemic’s suddenness, a lack of didactic knowledge, technical and organizational hurdles, and various other individual challenges. It is now clear that the emergency online semesters have permanently changed university teaching. Learning from both successes and failures, this article proposes the design and development of good (online) teaching for post-pandemic times. It bases its proposals on the documented experiences of teachers, on empirical data, and on three practical examples.The Weizenbaum Institute is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF
Control and Flexibility: The Use of Wearable Devices in Capital- and Labor-Intensive Work Processes
Full text linkThe use of wearables in the workplace allows for close monitoring of work processes and might also have consequences for work content and skill requirements. Past research has emphasized the detrimental effects of wearables, particularly those caused by the standardization of work and monitoring of workers. By contrast, this study asks under what conditions the implementation of wearables as part of digital assistance systems is beneficial for workers. Based on recent contributions in the field of labor process theory, this study analyzes the implementation of new technologies using the concepts of the regulatory regime, organizational first-order factors, and workplace second-order choices. The analysis is based on findings from 48 interviews with 83 interviewees in 16 German manufacturing workplaces along with making site visits. It examines the implementation of wearables and the impacts on work content, skills, working conditions, and employment. Besides showing how labor agency affects the implementation of new technologies, the particular contribution of this study lies in analyzing the differences in the implementation of wearables in capital- and labor-intensive organizations. While standardization of work and reduction of work content prevailed in labor-intensive processes, capital-intensive processes were most often characterized by the extension of skill requirements and the risk of work intensification
Supplementary material for “Idea generation in exploitative and explorative business process redesign techniques”
Full text linkTable A-1. Exclusion criteria for the evaluation of fluency
Table A-2. Excerpt of topic clusters, comprising exemplary idea clusters, and sample solutions from experiment for the evaluation of flexibility
Table A-3. All 25 topic clusters, comprising exemplary idea clusters, and sample solutions from experimen
Who reports witnessing and performing corrections on social media in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and France?
Full text linkObserved corrections of misinformation on social media can encourage more accurate beliefs, but for these benefits to occur, corrections must happen. By exploring people’s perceptions of witnessing and performing corrections on social media, we find that many people say they observe and perform corrections across the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and France. We find higher levels of self-reported correction experiencesData collection was supported by funding from Canadian Heritage’s Digital Citizenship Initiative
Exploring Prompt Generation Utilizing Graph Search Algorithms for Ontology Matching
Full text linkThe interoperability of domain ontologies, developed by domain experts, necessitates their alignment before attempting to match them. Within these ontologies, defined concepts often encounter an ambiguity problem stemming from the use of natural language. This interoperability issue raises the underlying ontology matching (OM) challenge. OM might be defined as the identification of correspondences or relationships between two or more entities, such as classes or properties among two or more ontologies. Rule-based ontology matching approaches, e.g., LogMap and AML have not outperformed machine learning based matchers on the Ontology Alignment Evaluation Initiative (OAEI) benchmark datasets, especially on the OAEI Conference track since 2020. Supervised machine or deep learning approaches produce the best results but require labeled training datasets. In the era of Large Language Models (LLMs), robust zero-shot prompting of LLMs can also return convincing responses. While prompt generation requires prompt template engineering by domain experts, contextual information about the concepts to be aligned can be retrieved by leveraging graph search algorithms. In this work, we explore how graph search algorithms, namely (i) Random Walk and (ii) Tree Traversal can be utilized to retrieve the contextual information to be incorporated into prompt templates. Through these algorithms, our approach refrains from considering all triples connected with a concept to be aligned in its contextual information creation. Our experiments show that including the retrieved contextual information in prompt templates improves the matcher’s performance. Additionally, our approach outperforms previous works leveraging zero-shot prompting
Digitalisierung der Arbeitswelten. Eine systemische Transformation?
Full text linkDer Artikel untersucht die Digitalisierung der Arbeitswelten als eine systemische Transformation, die alle Institutionensysteme der Arbeitsgesellschaft tiefgreifend und nachhaltig verändert. Der Text legt die Grundlage für die Forschungsarbeiten im gleichnamigen DFG-Schwerpunktprogramm 2267 und betrachtet die digitale Transformation als ein Zusammenwirken von drei Prozessdimensionen: soziale Vorbereitung, technische Ermöglichung und diskursive Aushandlung. Der interdisziplinäre Ansatz beleuchtet die vielfältigen Dynamiken und neuen Formen der Wertschöpfung, die durch die Digitalisierung entstehen. Ziel ist es, ein umfassendes Verständnis der digitalen Transformation als systemischen Wandel zu entwickeln und die theoretischen sowie methodischen Grundlagen für zukünftige Forschungen zu schaffen
Platform lobbying: Policy influence strategies and the EU's Digital Services Act
Full text linkThis paper examines how platform companies seek to lobby and otherwise influence policymakers during heated regulatory episodes. While there has been some valuable recent work on different policy influence strategies deployed by platform firms, in particular the emerging use of “user-facing” tactics of consumer mobilisation, current research tends to neglect the role of specific institutional contexts and related power structures intermediating the exertion of business power. Developing an institutionally situated approach, we offer an analysis of platform policy influence during the Digital Services Act (DSA) negotiations in the EU from 2019-2022. Through an analysis of political science literature on business power and interest group politics, we outline five strategies of corporate policy influence (access lobbying, coalition building, stakeholder mobilisation, public relations, and funding). Drawing on freedom of information requests, the EU Transparency register, and civil society watchdog reporting, we then provide an analysis of how platform firms sought to influence EU policymakers through these strategies around the DSA
Maßnahmen zur Hitze- und Starkregenvorsorge in Kitas und Pflegeeinrichtungen: Eine Evaluation von Risikowahrnehmung, Kommunikation und Informationsmaterialien
Full text link**Hintergrund und Ziel**
Hitze und Starkregen können negative Auswirkungen auf die Gesundheit von Menschen auch in Deutschland haben. Insbesondere vulnerable Gruppen wie Kinder und Ältere sind einem erhöhten Risiko ausgesetzt und bedürfen der besonderen Vorsorge. Diese Arbeit untersucht, wie Gefahren durch Hitze und Starkregen in der kommunalen Verwaltung und bei Trägern von Kindertagesstätten und Pflegeeinrichtungen wahrgenommen werden und inwiefern hierzu ein Austausch zwischen kommunaler Ebene und Einrichtungen stattfindet. Eigens entwickelte Informationsmaterialien mit Handlungsempfehlungen zur Anpassung an Hitze und Starkregen, die sich an Einrichtungen richten, werden evaluiert.
**Methoden**
Im Sommer 2021 fand eine quantitative Befragung von insgesamt 333 Teilnehmenden aus Stadtverwaltungen, Trägern und Einrichtungen (Kindertagesstätten und Pflegeeinrichtungen) statt. Zur statistischen Auswertung wurden deskriptive Analysen und Varianzanalysen durchgeführt.
**Ergebnisse**
Die Risikowahrnehmung und auch das Handlungswissen bzgl. Hitze fielen höher als hinsichtlich Starkregen aus. Die Handlungsabsicht, Einrichtungen Unterstützung zur Anpassung aufzuzeigen, war bzgl. Hitze ebenfalls größer. Die Mehrheit der Befragten aus Stadtverwaltungen und von Trägern stand mit Einrichtungen über verschiedene Wege im Austausch und kommunizierte u. a. über die genannten Naturgefahren. Das Informationsmaterial wurde mehrheitlich positiv bewertet.
**Diskussion**
Die Einrichtungen werden in Hinblick auf Hitze als stark betroffen angesehen. Die Sensibilisierung hinsichtlich Starkregens bedarf stärkerer Förderung. Die Rückmeldungen zu dem Informationsmaterial machen einen hohen Bedarf in diesem Bereich deutlich
Process science: the interdisciplinary study of socio-technical change
Full text linkProcess science is the interdisciplinary study of socio-technical processes. Socio-technical processes involve coherent series of changes over time, entailing actions and events that include humans and digital technologies. The ubiquitous availability of digital trace data, combined with advanced data analytics capabilities, offer new and unprecedented opportunities to study such processes through multiple data sources. Process science is concerned with describing, explaining, and intervening in socio-technical change. It is based on four key principles; it (1) puts socio-technical processes at the center of attention, (2) investigates socio-technical processes scientifically, (3) embraces perspectives of multiple disciplines, and (4) aims to create impact by actively shaping the unfolding of socio-technical processes