Week 10/2024
Wine, chandeliers and AI
View from Macau
Retrospect
Events
I returned safely from Macau, not before stumbling across a wine rack full with Château Pétrus worth 150.000 € or so at Macau airport.
Back in Vienna, I joined a very interesting conference on AI with the Court of Audit.
I learned, in particular, about the whitebook on AI the German Court of Audit had contributed to and on the AMS-algorithm.
The press conference at Concordia on better public administration and our suggestions
© Dr. Oliver Scheiber
got some attention, in particular in Die Presse, Kleine Zeitung and Salzburger Nachrichten. Our proposals are also, very extensively, covered in the current edition of DATUM.
The second first session (after the first first session in December) of the AI advisory board (very funny, Musil-style of handling things, btw, and: Styria rulez!) took place again in the beautiful Winterpalais in central Vienna. The chandelier was illuminated at the beginning
but went off for some unknown reason in the middle of the meeting (power outage? Energy costs? Help with concentration?) so that we continued in twilight without anybody asking questions about this.
There are many interesting legal issues in the organisational aspects of this board that is regulated in § 20c KommAustria-Gesetz. The hard facts are that we are 11 people, that the board is supposed to cooperate with the service unit (“KI Servicestelle”) that is newly founded at RTR with a yearly budget of 700.000,- € and shall be run by both RTR-subunits (media and telecom) cooperatively.
I didn’t have too many problems to find my jacket at the end of the meeting.
#arsboni
Price transparency, markets for lemons, informational asymmetries and what digitalisation can (not) do about them in the Austrian food market were the main topics of a highly interesting #arsboni episode with Mario Zechner.
Zechner is no too optimistic that anything legally relevant will happen in the field prior to the parliamentary elections in autumn, despite high inflation and many political statements that were saying the opposite.
Dr. Oliver Scherbaum, Julian Hessenthaler’s lawyer, met me in the former laundry and we had a very interesting conversation on the case, its political surrounding and consequences for laws on criminal procedure.
Prospect
Teaching
Summer term is starting so that there will be some first sessions including “Law for Computer Scientists” and “Data Ethics and Legal Issues”. Registrations are still possible in courses such as the Joint Seminar with Professor Selmayr or the Legal Design Sprint. A full overview on what is taught at the department is available and, in my view, very impressive, including, for example, classes on fashion law, platform law, European law, torts law or media law.
Professor Selmayr will also teach at the Invisible University for Ukraine (IUFU), speaking about “European Union Transformation since the Full-scale Russian Invasion of Ukraine” this Friday. IUFU is an initiative of CEU Democracy Institute.
It’s a nice coincidence that my former collaborator at Leibniz Universität Hannover, Iryna Lishchuk, LL.M., is going to defend her PH.D. thesis next week. Iryna is Ukranian and spoke with me in #arsboni about the attack on her country (exactly) two years ago.
#arsboni
Two sessions are scheduled for next week:
On Monday, 18.00 CET, Prof. Dr. Martin Schmidt-Kessel will help us to put the Data Act into some context (in German).
And on Wednesday, at 18.00 CET, Prof. DDr. Matthias Karmasin will talk about Democracy and Social Media (in German).
FairMedia
FairMedia, a research project on AI in the (Austrian) media sector, has a meeting on Friday that I am going to join. The debate on AI-generated (fake) news and their impact on the upcoming elections is gaining lots of momentum, including several events in the Parliament I will report on in one of the upcoming editions of this newsletter.
Daisy
is wondering why everyone around her is so restless. She is calmly and wisely waiting for the weekend.
© Felix Forgó
Have a wonderful week!
Kind regards
Nikolaus (Forgó)