Digitale Infrastrukturen in der Demokratie

Dauerhafte URI für die Sammlung

https://www.weizenbaum-library.de/handle/id/310

Listen

Auflistung Digitale Infrastrukturen in der Demokratie nach Forschungsgruppen "Technik, Macht und Herrschaft (WZB)"

Gerade angezeigt 1 - 3 von 3
  • Vorschaubild
    Item
    Handling the hype: Implications of AI hype for public interest tech projects
    (2023) Züger, Theresa; Kuper, Freia; Fassbender, Judith; Katzy-Reinshagen, Anna; Kühnlein, Irina
    Based on theories of expectations of technology and empirical data from expert interviews and case studies, this research article explores how actors in the field of public interest technologies relate to and within the dynamics of AI hype. On an affirmative note, practitioners and experts see the potential that AI hype can serve their own purposes, e.g., through improved funding and support structures. At the same time, public interest tech actors distance themselves from the dynamics of AI hype and criticize it explicitly. Finally, the article discusses how engagement with AI hype and its impact affects society as a whole and, more specifically, society’s ability to develop and use technologies in response to societal problems.
  • Vorschaubild
    Item
    In Palantir we trust? Regulation of data analysis platforms in public security
    (2024) Ulbricht, Lena; Egbert, Simon
    Organizations increasingly rely on digital technologies to perform tasks. To do so, they have to integrate data banks to make the data usable. We argue that there is a growing, academically underexplored market consisting of data integration and analysis platforms. We explain that, especially in the public sector, the regulatory implications of data integration and analysis must be studied because they affect vulnerable citizens and because it is not just a matter of state agencies overseeing technology companies but also of the state overseeing itself. We propose a platform-theory-based conceptual approach that directs our attention towards the specific characteristics of platforms—such as datafication, modularity, and multilaterality and the associated regulatory challenges. Due to a scarcity of empirical analyses about how public sector platforms are regulated, we undertake an in-depth case study of a data integration and analysis platform operated by Palantir Technologies in the German federal state of Hesse. Our analysis of the regulatory activities and conflicts uncovers many obstacles to effective platform regulation. Drawing on recent initiatives to improve intermediary liability, we ultimately point to additional paths for regulating public sector platforms. Our findings also highlight the importance of political factors in platform regulation-as-a-practice. We conclude that platform regulation in the public sector is not only about technology-specific regulation but also about general mechanisms of democratic control, such as the separation of power, public transparency, and civil rights.
  • Vorschaubild
    Item
    Power in AI and public policy
    (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2024) Ulbricht, Lena; Paul, Regine; Carmel, Emma; Cobbe, Jennifer
    This contribution scrutinizes how AI is related to power, how power theory can contribute to the debate about public sector AI, and whether new concepts of power are needed to study AI. Based on the assumption that the current public debate about AI is a power struggle about who gets to set the rules for future societal development, this chapter draws from the rich legacy of theories of power and domination and develops a systematization of different conceptions of power that encompasses various ontological and dimensional distinctions of power, carving out their analytical foci, and related power struggles. The remainder of the argument scrutinizes how these conceptions of power relate to dominant discourses about the power of AI in public policy: the use of AI in public policy and its power implications, recent initiatives to regulate AI, and AI-triggered systemic criticism and propositions for new social orders and utopias.