Week 19/2024

Ich mach' Projekte

May 03, 2024

I made a very positive Vienna-experience this week. After a very nice private dinner with friends I was invited to, I had left my backpack with all kinds of valuable personal belongings, including my ID card, a mobile phone, a laptop, banking cards etc., standing on the middle of a paveway in the middle of the night due to a technical problem with my bike that had grabbed my attention. Although I had returned aftter not more than 15 minutes, the back pack was no longer there.

:-(

Vienna’s Lost and Found Services were very kind and helpful and - after 3 days of despair and hours waiting to speak to “AI-driven”, non working chatbots (“Ich habe Sie nicht verstanden.”) at several banks via phone - I got (almost) everything back. An honest finder had found the rucksack and had anonymously dropped it into a “Fundbox”. The picture above shows me right after the handover at Vienna’s lost and found services (“Fundamt”), you can probably see how relieved I was.

Although this was an oustandingly positive experience at the end, there are three lessons out of this I want to share:

The lost and found service is only available in German - if you don’t speak German, you will need someone to help you :-(
If you have any identifying information in the item lost, you will not find it via the online search as it’s not put in the Fundamt’s online database. The “Fundamt” is contacting you personally instead. But as this contact is done via paper letter I would still be in despair not knowing anything about my property if I hadn’t actively called several times. The letter has not arrived here yet. :-(
For claimed legal reasons (I didn’t do an in depth search, but the Passgesetz, in particular its § 10a section 2, doesn’t really help; nor does the Passverordnung), lost passports and ID-Cards must not be returned to their owner by the lost and found service. They are to be sent to the passport authority instead - which is supposed then to write and send another letter with instructions on how to get the document to the known adress of the owner (which can be abroad). I haven’t heard anything from them yet about the fate of my now missing ID-card either. The card was actively taken out of my purse by the lost and found service and is the only item I am missing now. Oh, the irony!

Nikolaus’ Song For the Week (NSFW)

In order to make the reading of this newsletter a little more fun, I will select one song each week that I like or that I find at least interesting that you can, if you whish, listen to while reading - this will be “Nikolaus Song For the Week” - if the link/list is blocked somewhere due to its abbreviation, kindly let me know :-)

Here’s this week’s song: ##@@@ Zeig mir was Neues from Jakob Heymann with the wonderful line “Ich mach’ Projekte” in its lyrics.

MY NSFW- playlist (currently containing only this one song, obviously) is here:

Retrospect

#arsboni

Thanks to Sabine Aspelmeyer I know more now about differences in flight safety approaches between Boeing and Airbus and why she believes that being a pilot is a future proof profession.

Reinhard Steurer spoke about political engagement and the (missing) scientific consultancy on climate change matters to the federal government in Austria.

Irene Faber reported on the scientific service of Austria’s Supreme Court (“Wissenschaftlicher Dienst”; “Evidenzbüro”).

Meetings, Conferences

The Helt Symposion in Brussels put AI regulation and EHDS into contetxt. The main message I took was how hectic the legisklation process had been here with leaving huge problems untouched. My personal contribiution was sceptical too.

I met colleagues working on data protection and information security at lexICT - a company I co-founded 15 years ago. They are in a beautiful new office with a view on Hannover’s harbor now.

The morning run through Eilenriede was beautiful too.

We also had guests from Hannover in Vienna this week, at a meeting of the DiDi-project at our department.

Some of us participated at the Vienna Conference on Autonomous Weapons Systems.

We had an open lecture on “Getting Data to Flow”: China’s Law and Political Economy for Data Productivity”

The Advisory Panel on data protection to the federal government (“Datenschutzrat”) had a meeting in the big festival hall of the ministry of justice in Palais Trautson. Main topics were the Austrian draft law on the implementation of the NIS2-Directive and the DPO’s annual report (Datenschutzbericht 2023).

Nature, again

I am very proud to announce that another publication I coauthored was published in Nature earlier this week.

Prospect

Klimt - Fräulein Lieser

Friday, May 3rd, at 18.00 CET I will be chairing a panel debate on the restitution of a newly found portrait from Gustav Klimt - Fräulein Lieser. (German, free entry, registration needed)

This is cohosted and coorganised by the Vienna Art Law Clinic and, in particular, Lukas Faymann.

#arsboni

One session ahead of us next week. The issues is, in my view, of utmost importance to Universities: I’s about the fate of open access publications in times of mass collection of scientific data for purposes of AI development.

Thematic context will also be the interview with Brigitte Kromp:

Yoshua Bengio "Obtaining Safety Guarantees to avoid AI Catastrophic Risks"

I will join (in the audience) a presentation organised by the faculty of computer science, given by Yoshua Bengio. Bengio is one of the most influantial computer scientists working on AI in the world.