The highly transformative, artificial intelligence (AI) is disrupting the basic conditions by which human beings interpret and make sense of the world. The profound changes brought by digitalization in general, and by AI in particular, directly impact social and institutional formation, operation and cohesion. The potential consequences are weighty and varied, ranging from disrupted human habits to a confused state in fundamental institutional structures such as law and politics. The AI technologies and the way they are integrated in society displace characteristic human abilities such as creativity, decision making, and critical thinking. The structural effects of the way we implement AI, such as through algorithmic administration, governance, and the curating of information flows, also affect the space, modes and meaning of democratic citizenship. Through challenging human agency and uniqueness, these developments call into question certain core values of worldviews, political philosophies and the foundations of law. In this lecture, this current development is explored. Since 2017, different initiatives have been taken both in Europe and globally to enact new rules regulating artificial intelligence, rules that will have an impact on how democracy and human rights are perceived, understood and realized.

Anna-Sara Lind is Professor of Public Law at the Faculty of Law, Uppsala University. Her research focuses on public law, EU law and fundamental rights and on how EU law and international law interact in the fields of welfare state law and digitalization in a complex constitutional reality. She is Scientific leader of the Centre for Multidisciplinary Studies on Religion and Society, Uppsala University and member of the steering group at AI4Research. She has been involved in several multidisciplinary research projects investigating various fields such as citizenship, welfare and data protection. Since 2019, Anna-Sara Lind is member of the management team of WASP-HS, a ten-year-long research program running from 2019-2028. The vision of WASP-HS is to foster novel interdisciplinary knowledge in the humanities and social sciences about AI and autonomous systems and their impact on human and social development.

Date and location:
Tuesday, 22 October 2024, 17.15-19.00
University of Fribourg, Beauregard, Room BQC 2.813, Avenue Beauregard 13