Media and Technology

German Series in the USA
Binge Fever!

Television “Made in Germany” is having a golden moment with the rise of international streaming services. In this dossier, we highlight binge-worthy German serials and fill you in on where to watch them in the USA.

AI Autumn Session Glasgow 2019
AI; In Whose Eyes?

What is the role of art in shaping how we think about and use AI? How can artists working with AI respond to the complexities? “AI Autumn Session”, which brought together a group of artists and researchers at the Goethe Institut-Glasgow in October 2019, was underpinned by a central thesis: alternative ways of collaborating with AI need to be found outside of the capitalist and colonist logics which currently dominate its use, and that art has an important role to play in shaping new approaches.

Podcasts
In the most forthright terms

The fact that Germany is colourful and diverse is only partially reflected by the media landscape. The situation is different on the podcast scene – that is where minorities are expressing themselves about what energises them.

Coding da Vinci
The digitalisation of culture

Visitors to museums and archives usually interact with exhibits locked in display cases in darkened rooms. Yet modern technology has given us ways to more directly experience art and cultural artefacts. Coding da Vinci is an open, cultural data hackathon that digitally brings museum pieces to life.  

Data protection
Digital self-defence

Popular apps often use data in ways their users would not appreciate, but there are alternatives. Digital expert Markus Beckedahl has some tips.

Data protection
A society is more than the sum of its individuals

Facebook, Siri or Alexa – where artificial intelligence technology is concerned people often complain that there is insufficient protection of privacy. But intelligent systems are less interested in individual data than in generalising and standardising the life contexts they are automating. 

Diversity in the media
“Good intentions are not enough”

Too few journalists with an ethnic minority background or from disadvantaged social groups: how can we manage to reflect social diversity in the members of editorial teams? 

Education
Lessons to learn

What do young people need to know about artificial intelligence (AI) in order to use it responsibly and make informed decisions? Stephanie Hankey, co-founder of the Tactical Tech non-governmental organisation (NGO), talks about her experiences with young digital natives and the need for educational institutions and civil society to join forces to promote digital literacy.

“Deutschland Express” Virtual Festival
Virtual rail replacement service

(01 July 2021)
The “Deutschland-Express” organised by the Goethe-Institut in Moscow toured for a full six weeks as an online festival. Its purpose was to make Russian-German exchange possible during the pandemic.

The Quality of Machine Translation
Post-Human Literary Translation? A Kafka(esque) Example

We underestimate at our peril how quickly computers are progressing, so now is a good juncture to survey the scene! Just how good are computers at literary translation at the moment? Today’s leading MT systems were tasked with producing an English version of one of the most famous sentences in the German language: the opening of Kafka’s story “Die Verwandlung”!

The finalists
Image + Bias

We invited artists, designers, and the general public to submit creative representations on the subject of bias and technology’s growing ability to alter people’s visual perception of reality. An international jury selected the ten best works from over 150 submissions.
 

AI development
Taking the outside lane

Europe has fallen behind in artificial intelligence (AI) development, but this disadvantage may soon become an advantage.

Ethics and Law
“Let’s decide on our own European standards and stick to them”

Do we need to establish common standards for artificial intelligence? In this interview, Karen Yeung, Interdisciplinary Professorial Fellow in Law, Ethics and Informatics at the University of Birmingham, explains why the legal regulation of technological developments is crucial – and urgent.

Cultural expression and machine learning
The wolf we feed

Whether it is composing music or painting pictures, artificial intelligence has the technical and creative capacity to make art. Argentinian publisher Octavio Kulesz predicts this could lead to an explosion of creativity and increased market concentration at the same time.

Embracing artificial intelligence to preserve dying languages

As more language preservation initiatives inspired by artificial intelligence emerge, researchers argue that while they cannot fully capture the essence of language, they are a crucial aspect of preserving what is now deemed to be a global linguistic catastrophe.

Digitalism as a cultural technique: From alphanumerics to AI

Artificial intelligence is undoubtedly already influencing our traditional cultural techniques. But have we reached the point where the use of AI itself could be described as a cultural technique? One thing is certain: We have long utilised digital systems in our daily lives despite not having the slightest idea how they work.
 

Artificial Intelligence
The machine that unleashes our creativity

British mathematician Marcus du Sautoy is convinced that artificial intelligence (AI) can be as creative as humans and might even attain a state of consciousness in the future.

Podcasts
The Allure of the Auditory Experience

One in every four Germans listens to podcasts, and in the United States it is one in every two people. What makes the audio programs so popular and who is involved in the German-speaking podcast scene?

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