Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank you very much for the invitation to speak to you this evening, which honours me immensely, but has also put me under immense stress. Because the Catholic Academy in Bavaria has certainly not played a pioneering role in the "digital transformation".
Digital transformation in our work
When I came here five years ago, the first "digital transformation" under my leadership was that the minutes of our meetings were no longer copied onto coloured paper and carried personally from office to office, but - hear, hear! - were saved as a PDF on a server compartment where everyone could view them. You get the picture: We started at the bottom. And pushed forward many an innovation that could just as easily have been implemented 15 years earlier.
Then Corona gave us a boost. Within a year, we converted all of our PCs to laptops and transferred our server to a cloud, where we then also moved our time recording and telephony systems in order to be equipped for mobile working. At the same time, we had to close our face-to-face operations and could only offer our training online: Zoom events with rather clumsy didactics; and more and more videos on our YouTube channels, whose click numbers actually went pretty much through the roof by our standards. Today, many people read our magazine zur debatte digitally or book our rooms on booking.com. Our new website finally has interfaces so that you no longer have to copy and paste the data from the registration form into the database. What is still to come is an online payment function, an electronic locking system and digital, paperless financial accounting. There is no end in sight to this digital transformation.
The bottom line is that this is not an easy path for our employees. Was everything bad the way we used to do it? Is my job really safe? Why does everything have to change at the same time? Am I the only one who is struggling with IT? Our small, medium-sized company with a good 50 employees and a sluggishness that is not entirely untypical in the church sector has done quite well, but it is certainly not a model company when it comes to change management.
Digital transformation in our reflection
What defines us as an academy is, of course, the reflection on the phenomenon of digitalisation. We are actually obliged by our statutes to reflect on the relevant social developments. And the field of digitalisation is almost limitless. We have been organising a Digital Salon for a number of years to discuss issues relating to this topic. And just last weekend, we brought the three-day Philosophical Days on the topic of AI to a close ...
The changes that are currently taking place and the speed at which they are coming: it can be really scary - especially if your own workplace is still organised in a rather "old school" way.
AI as a challenge for people
I believe that the current development is perceived as so frightening above all because digital instruments no longer just support us humans, but actually compete with us. AI no longer just calculates results according to predefined algorithms, but is able to learn, reflect on its own way of working and become better and better, also through interaction with users. Digital instruments are simply better than we are at many things that we thought were our own domain just a short time ago:
- We should probably hand over driving to them completely: They avoid traffic jams by analysing real-time data, keep their distance and the speed limit and save lives in the process. Fewer 'deaths due to toxic masculinity': that's great!
- Today, machines play chess better than any world champion. They write texts and poems. And computer programmes. They paint and generate real-looking "photos" of subjects that never existed. They pass exams in law, medicine and physics and make us look old with our hard-earned professional qualifications.
- In companies, AI will also find its way onto desks across a broad front - and certainly also into management tasks: It evaluates documents, knows the facts with a precision that no human can remember, and it can group, prioritise and evaluate these facts. She actually knows better who is best suited to the vacancy out of two hundred applications - so if applications for vacancies should ever come in again ...
AI could therefore make things easier for managers and take decisions off their hands. On the other hand, it could rationalise away some desk workers - just as it took work away from assembly line workers in the past. "Just retrain yourself!"
- In his book Quality Land, Marc Uwe Kling explains how an android is elected president because his decisions are more rational, well-founded, far-sighted and beneficial to the common good than when human politicians are guided by emotions or party interests. Still: a thought experiment. Soon to be reality? Sometimes you almost wish it were ...
- And literary dystopias are not that far removed from reality. Today, "transhumanists" are already hoping for a paradisiacal future in which our biological bodies merge completely with technical instruments; through implants that feed the possibilities of AI directly into our sensory organs, into our neurons and turn us into real cyborgs. That will come for sure.
- Speaking of merging: People are now falling in love with humanoid robots or even disembodied chatbots - some so much so that they want to marry them in the full legal sense, because no human can give them such love. This may be dismissed as a curiosity. But it will become part of our normality.
AI therefore poses massive challenges to our image of humanity. Our self-image. And it is seizing power over us.
AI as a danger for humans
That's why this topic doesn't leave us cold. It scares us. And it could actually become really dangerous.
In March, more than 1,000 IT developers, including big names such as Elon Musk and Apple founder Steve Wozniak, called for a moratorium on new AI models in an open letter: a pause for thought was needed because otherwise the systems could get out of control and become dangerous for humanity. Critics objected,
The horror scenario is more likely to serve the marketing of the tech companies and distract from the actual dangers! As there would be:
- AI algorithms can amplify the distortions and injustices of reality - for example, when black people are less likely to be recommended for treatment in US hospitals because it seems less promising to the AI. However, the machine did not care that the data set reflected a discriminatory injustice because black people were simply treated less frequently in the past.
- The negative effects in the world of work also seem to affect typical women's jobs and the socially disadvantaged more than the higher earners.
- It goes without saying that fake news and propaganda are also accelerated by AI. Images can lie through their teeth. Voices are imitated deceptively realistically after a few seconds of recording - with sentences that they have never said.
- In the meantime, most Twitter and X users are no longer real people, but "bots" that control the hypes and waves of public opinion without users being able to tell the difference. Elections are already being manipulated in this way - the basis of our democracy.
- Don't even get me started on cyber security!
The dangers are magnified by the fact that AI adapts and changes its own way of working - and can also adapt its goals in a direction that was not intended or foreseen by its developers. "Emergence" - the unexpected leap of a development into a new quality - is thus, well, "pre-programmed". Nobody can therefore predict the consequences of the AI revolution today. And once tens of thousands of AI instruments start interacting with each other, it is unlikely that any AI in the world will be able to predict the outcome.
Machines have now reached a level of autonomy that seriously questions the autonomy of humans.
AI as a human task
One thing is absolutely clear: humans must set limits for AI. They must contain it. Just as the free market as a whole can only develop its dynamics to the benefit of all if it is given a framework by politicians within which it can operate freely, the dangers and disadvantages of digitalisation unleashed by tech companies can only be kept in check and distributed fairly through political action.
How do you get AI in line? This is another question that is now being addressed by hordes of researchers. "Alignment", i.e. the "alignment" of AI with human values and ethical goals, will become a task for companies like ours. If we don't do this, the algorithms will make value judgements for us. It's absurd: the very people who called for a moratorium six months ago with a heart-rending gesture of dismay are in a fierce race to get every bit of a head start on the competition. After all, billions are at stake - dollars and users. It seems impossible to me that control and moderation will take hold here on a voluntary basis. I would therefore like to take up the cudgels in favour of a political mandate: We need more regulation. More politics. More state. Because this is where power is legitimised. And this is where the responsibility for the common good lies.
Nobody can expect individual companies to slow themselves down and be pioneers at the expense of their own competitiveness. What is needed is a framework in which a company does not suffer any economic disadvantage or can perhaps even benefit from it if it handles this sensitive issue responsibly. And conversely, companies should not dismiss this regulation as a burden, but recognise it as a relief: It's good if the others have to join in! It should be a matter of honour for entrepreneurs to participate in this gigantic, global task for society as a whole, and to sensitise and train management and staff to live up to their right to have a say, take fears seriously, train specialist knowledge and pay attention to social protection in the process.
It will be hard enough if we all pull together. After all, the problem can only be solved internationally, only globally. And when I think about how tough it was and how long it took for the global community to agree on common climate targets (and how far away we still are from meeting them), then we have to hope for a miracle - and for the realisation that things will get much worse for everyone if we don't get this right. At least the European Union is leading the way internationally on this issue for once: the Artificial Intelligence Act recently passed by the EU Parliament is a step in the right direction. Let's hope it goes far enough - and fast enough.
AI as an educational mission
The education sector, to which my academy belongs and, of course, this great foundation university, which is precisely why it invited us to today's management talks, also has a special responsibility. The world has become even more confusing. No longer just volatile, but fragile. No longer just insecure, but full of deep-seated fear of the future. No longer just complex and ambiguous, but to a large extent strictly incomprehensible.
A leap into a new quality is also needed in education. Anchoring digital expertise in all system owners, but also in society as a whole, is perhaps the most important challenge for us. Understanding at least the basic principles of how AI works and thus being able to give its results the right value, recognising the economic or ideological interests behind them, spotting and exposing manipulation, methodically pricing in the re-generated distortions of reality ... skills like these are likely to be more important in the future than learning how to write a seminar paper, for example.
We need courage and confidence for this learning process. We need to embrace digitalisation and AI and deal with them critically and enthusiastically. We must seize its opportunities, otherwise we will lack the expertise to combat its dangers.
Rules of thumb for humanity in dealing with AI
It probably takes a 'shaken degree' of resilience not to go crazy. After all, the call for politics and education only helps us individually to a limited extent on our own path through these unknown worlds. I would therefore like to conclude by reaching deep into the treasure chest of our religion. After all, we have a catalogue of tried and tested rules of thumb on how to live a successful life, how to deal with the world and with each other: the Decalogue. Let's take a look at what these chunks of biblical bedrock have to offer for our topic.
It begins with the sentence "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery". The experience that has coagulated here places trust as a heading above everything else: trust that our God is a God of freedom and that there are ways that lead out of the constraints of the world. Building resilience through trust in God is perhaps a core competence, a valuable resource of our faith.
"You shall have no other gods before me." I would say: AI is not a god. It is part of God's creation, which has always been emergent. In this respect, we should subdue it, make it serve us, and not idolise it.
"Thou shalt not make thyself a likeness!" In times when Der Spiegel is proclaiming the end of truth because of fake pictures, this perhaps means: You should know that photos no longer have to have a correlate in reality. Please allow me to say that digital competence in this matter also comes a bit naturally: for some time now, my daughters, aged 10 and 12, have been playing around with the face filters on their mobile phones. And even though I felt a little queasy the first time, I have to say: it's really, really funny. And incidentally, these tools also provide a solid assessment of the expressiveness of images. How easy it is! They would never fall for the "photo" of a raving pope.
"On the seventh day you shall rest!" That tells me: Take a break! Be offline for once! Can you still drive a car without a sat nav? Do you remember how to have a conversation with the person opposite you on the train? Leave your mobile phone at home for a walk and enjoy the smell of musty autumn leaves instead, and all the other wonderful things that God's good, analogue creation has in store for you! For all our love of technology, let's not forget how to manage without it. God regularly recommends abstinence.
"You shall honour your father and mother." For me, in times of rapid developments, this means not leaving anyone behind who can no longer keep up. Participation must also be possible in our society without having a mobile phone or being able to operate an MVV ticket machine. And at the same time, older people deserve respect for the changes they have dealt with in their lives. Only the speed has changed. The pace has always been fast. We can continue to cultivate and honour some old-fashioned methods. I'm always happy when I see young people with paper calendars or address books. We don't have to do away with them on principle.
"Thou shalt not kill." Now it's getting serious. Because digitalisation can indeed be murderous. There is cybercrime that destroys livelihoods. There are "structures of evil" in bullying that are even more brutal online than in the school playground, for example. There are AI-supported weapons systems that autonomously decide over life and death. And people are literally working themselves to death to mine the rare earths needed to produce our devices. These are fields in which we are also called upon to act ethically as individuals! Our EMASplus QM system is currently problematising the climate-damaging effects of streaming! I would prefer to suppress this because streaming is saving our skin right now. But we have to face up to such questions.
"Thou shalt not commit adultery." Maybe like this: We should not be unfaithful to our real-life relationships because we are constantly succumbing to the pull of digital devices.
"Thou shalt not steal" and not even "covet thy neighbour's goods and chattels". So not even his data! Let's resist the greed of using digital technology to trick people and steal things from them that they would never knowingly give us.
"Thou shalt not lie!" This calls on us to show moderation when a shitstorm once again breaks out against someone or when bashing supersedes arguments in a political debate. And to cultivate a culture of transparency, evidence and verifiability of statements in our own organisation.
No false pride!
Ladies and gentlemen, this could not have been more than a few associative splinters. But it was only my task to give you a little food for thought for the remaining hours of our table discussions. To break the seriousness of the subject a little, I would like to end with the 11th commandment. In my childhood, it circulated in the version: "Thou shalt not get caught!" Tonight I would like to summarise it as follows: "Thou shalt not be caught on the wrong foot." I ask myself whether the hype and the heated debate in this country's feature pages is not partly due to the fact that we intellectuals have been caught off guard by this leap in the quality of AI.
It's basically nothing new that human labour is being taken over by machines. In past decades, it was mainly physical labour. We brain workers, all of us in this room, were able to deal with this in a relatively relaxed manner: That's not what makes a person human! The coal miners or assembly line workers can retrain themselves!
But let's be honest: workers in the 70s were just as hard hit when the things they did best, the things that defined them, their lives, their biographies, their self-image and self-esteem, were rationalised away. Retraining didn't help at all at first.
So now it's our turn, our brains, our intelligence. Machines can now also do mental work. That was unexpected. And it humiliates us a little in our self-image of belonging to the more important part of humanity. Let's admit it: we are a little hurt in our pride. And perhaps that's why the debate among intellectuals is a little more heated than it needs to be.
Let's take this as an opportunity to question the arrogance of the mind over the body. No false pride! Would it be so bad if the mind wasn't a person's speciality? Perhaps the development will lead us to a reconsideration of what really constitutes our humanity at its core. What remains when we become demented or bedridden. And that is just as little intellectual abilities as it is physical labour.
Perhaps it's more the emotions: Empathy, mindfulness, intuition, the heart in the right place. Knowing how something feels and how someone else is feeling. Being able to interpret an imperceptible wink or a smirking twitch at the corner of the mouth. Humour. Let's laugh more at ourselves! And above all: let's laugh with each other. No AI can do that, at least not yet! And it may lead us deeper into the reason for our human existence than some intellectual acrobatics.
With this in mind: Bon appétit! Let it melt in your mouth and enjoy our human togetherness!
