A robot paints a natural landscape prompt by Lord Jim @ Midjourney AI
prompt by Lord Jim @ Midjourney AI

The Great AI Swindle
 Synthetic Truth

Is truth a personal opinion in the digital age? Experts, artists, and thinkers weigh in on the ways artificial intelligence is shaping society, from enabling creative collaboration to threatening democracy as we know it. Journey into the heart of the debate in this issue of Gegenüber.

Paul Holdengräber and Werner Herzog’s discussion at the Thomas Mann House conference on “Arts in Times of Crises: The Role of Artists in Weakened Democracies” Los Angeles, November 2023 ©Thomas Mann House / Photo: Aaron Perez

Werner Herzog in Conversation
 Every Man for Himself and Code Against All

Halina Kliem

Illustrated Photo Detail of a crowd holding protest and strike signs during the 2024 WGA strikes in Hollywood Detail and modification of "WGA Strike 6.21.2023 032"Creative Commons 2.0 via flickr user "ufcw770"

Writers Take on AI in Hollywood
 Pen vs. Code

Charles Dewey

felg 1 © Goethe-Institut Mexiko | Illustration: Miguel Ángel Chávez

AI in Mexico
 Manuel Felguérez: AI Pioneer

Ricardo Roa

Robotic hands pulling up a plant prompt by savbeck @ Midjourney AI

Bias in a Culture of Optimization
 On Being an Outlier

Proponents of AI promise incredible benefits — but at what cost? Our financial, judicial, and medical systems rely on algorithms. Dr. Rua Williams reflects on the unexpected impact of AI technologies on marginalized groups.

Rua Williams

Pinar Yoldas : « Kitty AI : Artificial Intelligence for Governance (2016) » © Pinar Yoldas

AI Representations in Art
A Synthetic Voice, Between Authority and Truth

Nathalie Bachand

Künstliche Intelligenz Mit Herz und Seele? © Leonardo AI

Artificial intelligence
With Heart and Soul?

Dr. Ralf Otte

The soulful human machine © Shutterstock AI

Ethics
 Social Machines and Human Values

Zeph Thibodeau

Two children on a hill looking down on a bombed city. © Adobe

Philosophy
Truth as a Function

Leonhard Emmerling

HAL 9000's Eye from "2000 - A Space Odyssey" © Shutterstock

Deceitful Algorithms
Bad Machines

Priscilla Jolly

Bild 2 Illustration: Liza González

Democracy and AI
 Artificial Discourses

Mariana González

A robotic cowboy holding the scales of justice prompt by savbeck @ Midjourney AI

Large Language Models and Democracy
 A Way Forward or Artificial Insanity?

David Dao

The award-winning “photo” titled “Pseudomnesia: The Electrician,” for which Boris Eldagsen was honored with the Sony World Photography Award in the “Creative” category. Eldagsen described the image as “a poignant black-and-white portrait of two women from different generations, reminiscent of the visual language of family portraits from the 1940s.” He created it using the DALL-E 2 image generator from OpenAI. © Boris Eldagsen

Unfounded Fears in the AI Debate
 Stolen Creativity

Boris Eldagsen

Dennis Kastrup, Jessica Huelgas, Suzanne Kite, and Boris Eldagsen Photos: © Dennis Kastrup, © Jessica Huelgas, © Rita Taylor, © Jan Sobottka

Panel Discussion
 Artistic Intelligence: Creativity Between Man and Machine

Which information is true, which is artificially generated? Spotting the difference is becoming ever more difficult as AI-augmented fake news and disinformation are spreading. Photo (detail): © Adobe

Artificial Intelligence and Elections
It’s About Saving Democracy

Dan Gillmor

Artificial intelligence is by no means as fair or neutral as it may seem. Photo (detail): © Adobe

Artificial Intelligence
 Awful AI

David Dao

Musicians and Machines
 How Machine Learning Can Create New Ways of Making Sounds

Jesse Engel

What constitutes a “normal” face? The Normalizi.ng project is an experimental online research project using machine-learning to analyze and understand how we decide who looks more normal. Photo (detail): © Normalizi.ng

Images and Bias
 What Do Normal People Look Like?

Mushon Zer-Aviv