Last week at TU Wien, organized by the members of the Digital Humanism community, a Polis Digitalis Series has started, with an online interview with Brando Benefei.
Brando Benifei is member of the European Parliament; after having served as a co-rapporteur of the AI Act, he is now the chair of the EP delegation for relations with the US. The interview was led by Janis Brühl, who is one of Germany’s leading journalists and heads the digital and finance team at Süddeutsche Zeitung. A short summary of this meeting, by Stefan Woltran, who is the Chair of the Digital Humanism Steering Committee:
“The setting for this interview was the current geopolitical situation on dignity and independence versus digital vassalage: from the attempts by the Trump administration and the Big Tech oligarchs to cancel or weaken EU digital regulation to the Greenland developments and the publication of the new US security strategy, we are witnessing concerted attacks which constitute a real and present existential danger for the EU. Will the EU stand strong and united in this “moment of truth” or will it backslide towards a loose gathering of weak states where Big Tech can purvey their platforms and AI applications with no rules or guardrails and with total impunity?“
Digital Polis is an open, online event, to which EURIDICE partners are warmly invited. In case you missed the interview with MEP Brando Benifei you can watch it here.
The goal of the Polis Digitalis series is to bring together policy makers, journalists and academics to discuss the most recent actual or foreseen developments of policy decisions for the digital sphere, reflect on their impact, raise awareness in civil society at large and, when deemed suitable, formulate proposals in the spirit of Digital Humanism. Stay tuned for the next editions.
Reminder of our next Digital Humanism events:
24.02.26 Sayeed Choudhury: “The Imperative of Openness in AI”
10.03.26 Stefan Szeider on “LLMs when left alone”
26.03.26 IWM Digital Humansim Fellowship Lecture Toby Walsh: “The AI Race: Boom or Doom?”
21.04.26 Darja Djordjevic on “AI companionship”
public calendar to stay updated: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/dighumtuwien%40gmail.com/public/basic.ics
We are looking forward to seeing you!
Stefan Woltran