Art & AI, podcast & politics, ethics & economy: 5 events you shouldn’t miss at re;publica 2019

We all know that conferences can be quite busy and overwhelming. There are a whole lot of people, huge halls, different areas and so many program sessions, keynotes and side events on the agenda. It’s always noisy, crowded and one can get easily overwhelmed by all the impressions.

Monday Porgram at re;publica 2019

To avoid that, I always check the program in advance and generate my own personal agenda before attending any large conference. This is what I also did to prepare for re;publica 2019 — Germany’s largest conference for the digital society in Berlin. Starting tomorrow, there will be several hundreds of program sessions with even more speakers on seven tracks and 16 topics. For three days. On more than 15 stages. So I took a look at the program schedule and selected five sessions that I definitely want to attend.

In case you still need a recommendation, here’s my personal agenda for #rp19:

1. Eric Eitel is co-founder of Music Pool Berlin and if you didn’t know him yet, I advise you to go on twitter, search for @alias_eitel and hit follow for great reading suggestions, smart opinions and technological education. I appreciate his view on things, creativity and sophisticated interest in technology, culture, music and our future — he combines my passion for both art and AI. This is why I’m looking forward to his “AI — Art — I” panel at re;publica with Diana Alina Serbanescu, Julia Schneider, Andreas Dzialocha, Christian von Borries and Lena Kadriye Ziyalnow — forming a super interesting panel of musicians, scientists and artists who are all connected by the topic of AI.
   AI — Art — I | Monday, May 6 | Stage 8 | 1:45 pm
2. I’m a huge fan of podcasts. I listen to them during my morning workout as well as while I’m traveling or vacuuming at home. Just recently, I had the pleasure to talk with Bastian Wilkat about my work at Porsche Digital Lab, the importance of diversity and innovation in the automotive industry. But besides podcasts, there’s another thing I really like: politics. And I aspire strong and smart women such as Diana Kinnert who are working in this field. Not only is she an inspiring female politician, but also part of a live podcast about rap and politics at re;publica. I’m very much looking forward to being part of a live episode of “Machiavelli” with Diana Kinnert and sookee on Monday!
   “Machiavelli” live | Monday, May 6 | Stage 5 | 3 pm
3. Billions of decisions are made by algorithms today, directly affecting our life. We can see that the increasing influence of AI and technologies raises questions of responsibility and ethics for this decision-making principle. In their panel, Sandra Wachter, Sarah Spiekermann and Lorena Jaume-Palasí discuss the general question whether ethics can even be scaled so far at all: Is there a valid approach to linking billions of decisions to a fix set of ethical principles? What happens if different ethical frameworks collide in the algorithms? These questions really make me ponder and I’m curious to hear their smart thoughts on it. Besides, I’ve read a lot from Sandra already and am looking forward to finally get to see her live at re;publica.
   Ethics for Billions | Tuesday, May 7 | Stage 7 | 4:15 pm
4. My fourth suggestion is combining the three topics from above: AI, politics and ethics. In this panel, four experts who are all dealing with the ethical face of AI and technology in different contexts will come together to discuss if we need a (more) mandatory regulation for a human-centered design of AI. Martin Ebers, Chairman of Robotics & AI Law Society (RAILS), Founder of AlgorithmWatch Matthias Spielkamp, state secretary Björn Böhning and Chris Nadine Kranzinger from quantco.com bring together the perspectives of politics, economy and science, which gives hope for an exciting exchange.
   AI: Human, Power, Machine | Wednesday, May 8 | Denkfabrik | 4:30 pm
5. As you know, I am a big fan of art. This is why the last event of re;publica I want to take on my bucket list is an interactive installation. The installation “Who am I?” by the University of Art and Design Burg Giebichenstein poses the tricky question of the gender of robots. How? Conference guests are invited to think of a name for the robot. A UR5 robot arm then writes the name on a sticker with the inscription “Hello my name is…”. The idea seems so easy and still reality is so challenging. Just think of the moment you’re standing in front of it — and somehow, you’re thinking of the robot as male. Or female. Or neither. I like how the installation challenges you to answer an enormously complex question in such a simple way — and hope to see many of you accepting this challenge. Who am I? — Gender and Robotics | Monday — Wednesday, May 6–8 | Fabmobil

#rp19

This is just a very small selection of so many great events and sessions at #rp19, but maybe there’s something that now caught your interest. If not, there’s this one last thing on my agenda that may be interesting for some of you as well: On Wednesday at 12:30 pm, I will be speaking about the future of tech and mobility together with Katy Campbell from APX and Jacek Mikus from Robonetica on Stage 3. I’d love to see some of you there, discussing the role of technology, sustainability and mobility for a better tomorrow together. And of course: Feel free to visit me at the Porsche booth, at my panel or somewhere in between.

Let´s meet in Berlin and #createtomorrow together.

Please stay tuned for more information: In our next blog post about re:publica we will introduce our program together with all our partners. Until then, follow us on Twitter (Porsche Digital Lab Berlin, Porsche Digital), Instagram (Porsche Digital Lab Berlin, Porsche Digital) and LinkedIn (Porsche Digital Lab Berlin, Porsche Digital). Everything about re:publica in Berlin can be found here.