University of Bremen, 2023
Recent algorithms that rely on advanced machine learning techniques and use big data require the ability to handle opacity without assuming transparency. The latest approaches to explainability reproduce what happens in communication, producing explanations of the working of algorithms that can be different from the processes of the machines.
University of Cologne, 17.1.2022
Recent prediction techniques are radically changing the relationship with the future and with uncertainty in many societal areas. Since modernity, we address the indeterminacy of the open future with probabilistic tools. The new digital techniques rely on statistics, but both conceptually and practically algorithmic prediction is very different from the probabilistic attitude and the corresponding form of rationality. I investigate a more extensive form of rationality, guided by the observation that the new techniques show a fascinating parallelism with those investigated by divination studies.
Alexander von Humboldt Institut for internet and society, 12.3.2018
What does prediction by algorithms and AI mean? Organisations and administrations are collecting and storing massive amounts of data in order to detect patterns in the present and generate expected scenarios of the future. How do algorithms and AI help us in coping with increasing uncertainties and huge amounts of data – and at what price? What can we know, in turn, about these technological infrastructures of our society? How does AI shift our understanding and production of knowledge? And how do algorithmic forecasts affect our relationship with the future?
HKW - 1948 Unbound: Unleashing the technical present, 2.12.2017
Algorithmic prediction is very different from the idea of prediction established in modern society since the 18th century. Whereas in the modern view, the future is open and unknowable, predictive algorithms promise to know the future in advance. Like a modern divination, algorithmic prediction does not address averages and general trends, but attempts to give precise indications about the future of a single event in which it directly intervenes. Which are the risky formations of causality presented by algorithmic prediction? (simultaneous German translation)
SWF Forum - Paradoxienmanagement in der Praxis , 2024
SWF Alumni-Treffen 2018