re:publica 2024: Net politics, AI and the question of who actually cares?

Contents

Monday, Berlin station, the 17th re:publica begins. The topics of the hour: AI, democracy, social cohesion and who actually cares about what. "Who cares?" is the motto, it's about care - and everyone here wants to care. The audience is diverse, united in their motivation to do good for a better digital coexistence. The omnipresent AI hype is viewed very soberly at re:publica. Even in 2023, the tones were rather quiet and critical. When AI ultras say that their models are "like on steroids", AI at re:publica is seen more like neurodiverse humans who are well adjusted with medication.

The presentations are differentiated: AI in bereavement work, AI and copyright, AI ethics in hacking, how AI supports work in archives. Or: Generative AI from the perspective of employees. How do they actually experience it when ChatGPT and co. are supposed to do their jobs? Georg von Richthofen and Sonja Köhne from the Humboldt Institute say that AI often has an "X and minus X effect" - for example, when AI is more effective in one place but does more work in another. ChatGPT makes research faster, but checking takes longer. AI makes things more efficient, but costs money. And that's how the answers of people from the advertising industry sound when they are asked.

Of course, it is difficult to use AI for care or care work. This is work that is generally poorly paid or not paid at all. And also receives far too little recognition. Once again, all visitors agreed on this. It's about education, care, pedagogical work and social work, everything that is now sometimes handed over to robots in times of a shortage of skilled workers, but can usually only be performed very marginally by artificial intelligence.

Can AI sex bots be put to good use? Iris Phan and Philipp Fussenegger explain what data such a toy needs. Does it take a village to raise a child? Katja Thiede knows that this sentence is a truism and that this village simply does not exist on the somewhat hidden stage adjacent to the children's playground. There are many children at re:publica and the parallel Tincon youth fair.

What else is there to do? At the beginning of the three-day event, there is a video. "I take care of ... " From potatoes in raised beds to wild bees, pregnant women and babies, elections and the sick father to banking matters and cycle paths in cities, everything is included that speakers and participants have obviously spoken into the camera in advance.

Against sexist shit in a record year

Nils Bokelberg and Anna Dushim are once again the hosts of the main stage. But unlike last year, this year's re:publica is back at the Station site. After its beginnings in Kalkscheune and Friedrichstadtpalast, re:publica has been a guest at Station since 2012, with a stopover at Arena Berlin in the past two years. Both old industrial sites. A bit hip and edgy. What is commonly thought of as "very Berlin".

Johnny Haeusler is the first to go. The re:publica co-founder talks about femicides and that men should become feminists. Women do significantly more care work, women are more often victims of violence. "We need to intervene earlier when all this sexist shit is going on and say to someone earlier, 'Shut the fuck up'." But it's also about the climate crisis and rising rents, increasing xenophobia and a lack of effort. A bigger scandal than "a few bangers on Sylt" is how politicians are acting at the borders and in Lebanon to reduce migration by a few percent.

As usual, co-organizer Markus Beckedahl presents the program. There was a record 1500 submissions, with more than 800 sessions in the end. "It's the biggest re:publica we've ever had in terms of the program." His presentation on the state of digital Germany follows late in the afternoon. Fiber optic expansion, meh. Digital Ministry - would be better than too many people feeling responsible and no one feeling responsible in the end, as is currently the case. Beckedahl continues to mourn "our favorite network of all" - Twitter. AI expertise in politics? So far unbundled. Google's dangerous garbage results in the new search? The provider should be held responsible, says Beckedahl.

Big tech next to ARD and ZDF

The public broadcasters are represented in one hall. There's a lot of media here anyway, since re:publica has merged with the Media Forum. But the Augsburg State Theater is also there. Digitalcourage is offering workshops on Fediverse. Google and TikTok are present. While TikTok recently discussed the right advertising environment for brands and companies at the OMR Festival in Hamburg, the focus here is on how the social network gets involved and, as they always say, how the integrity of the elections can be ensured. There are figures on deleted content and moderators and more.

Google is getting the hang of it: Net politics is the internet, the internet is Google – at least it often enough seems as if Google is claiming to be the internet. People use Google and YouTube to educate themselves politically, more and more people are using AI, including within Google's services. And AI in turn tells a lot of nonsense. So in many ways, it's Google's job to combat misinformation: They are trying to prevent others from publishing it. They themselves need to take a good look at themselves and prevent their AI from generating fake news en passant, as Beckedahl also mentions.

The stand of the Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs receives a visit from its top digitizer: Volker Wissing. He says on site that more data is needed – especially more data that can be analyzed. Data is the be-all and end-all. And data is the raw material for AI. This, in turn, should also come from Europe and not just from China and the USA, which is why it is so necessary to collect and use data.

Wissing also believes that digitalization means no longer having to offer a railcard in a form other than digital, that AI will solve the shortage of skilled workers and that data protection should be a federal issue and no longer regulated at state level. A short and perhaps abbreviated ride through the ministry's topics.

Political education with Tincon

Tincon also returned to the station. This is the part of the event aimed at 13 to 25-year-olds. They are obviously taking up more and more space at the event. Civic education is the keyword, and taking care of them is probably also part of the care work that everyone here is interested in. The students seem a little lost at times. Nevertheless, they will certainly take away a big chunk. This seems particularly relevant considering the European elections in June, when 16-year-olds will be allowed to vote for the first time.

At re:publica, students and journalists, people who were recently active on Twitter, teachers and lecturers, employees of non-governmental organizations and anyone interested in net politics get a compact yet in-depth overview of current digital topics. You could spend a year reading many articles that convey similar content, it's not rocket science. Nevertheless, the essence can also be consumed at a hip event in a relaxed atmosphere. The human algorithm behind re:publica has done a good job in selecting the topics.

(emw)