Fifth Conversation | AI, Surveillance, Manipulation – Does Technology Threaten Democracy?

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At LMU, artificial intelligence is both an object of research and a tool used in research and teaching. At the same time, AI is transforming many assumptions that have long been taken for granted in society. In particular, it calls into question what previously seemed relatively straightforward: the attribution of knowledge.

This raises substantial unresolved questions that go to the very heart of what constitutes a university.

University education and academic research have traditionally depended on the ability to attribute knowledge clearly to individual persons. For students, academic achievement is assessed in terms of the knowledge they themselves produce and their ability to apply and engage with it. For researchers, academic careers are ultimately structured around processes of attribution, documented and reconstructed through publications presenting their own research.

The cultural challenge posed by the use of AI therefore confronts LMU with a fundamental questioning of established academic practices and conventions. This is a challenge that must be addressed proactively.