Christian Katzenbach: The Long and Quick Formation of Generative AI as Inevitable: Imaginaries, Policies, and Controversies

Generative AI did not simply arrive. It was brought into being, not only technologically but through national policy documents, corporate strategies, media controversies, and stakeholder negotiations, AI has been actively constructed as an inevitable, transformative force. But who drives this process, and what visions of the future does it encode? This talk examines the long and at the same time rapid formation of generative AI as a sociotechnical phenomenon. Drawing on research into national AI strategies and competing stakeholder imaginaries across the US, China, and Germany, it traces how AI is discursively shaped by industry, government, academia, and civil society — and how these actors promote strikingly similar narratives of disruption, competition, and progress, even as they pursue different interests. The talk also turns to the controversies generative AI provokes today — from disputes on copyright and creative work to mental health risks  — and asks how these conflicts shape the normative and political stakes of AI development, and more importantly: what generative AI actually becomes. The result is a picture of AI not as a neutral technology, but as a deeply contested object, continuously made and remade through communication, power, and public debate.

Afterwards, there will be a commentary on the lecture by Florian Irgmaier (WI/WZB) and an open discussion. Florian Irgmaier is a research associate at the Weizenbaum Institute and works on topics within the sociologies of knowledge, science, and technology. In October 2025, he received his doctorate from Bielefeld University with a thesis on “Science and Technology in the Social Construction of Horizons of the Possible”.

About Christian Katzenbach

Christian Katzenbach is professor of communication and media science with a focus on media governance and platform economy at the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI) at the University of Bremen. He is head of the Lab “Platform Governance, Media, and Technology“. In his research, he addresses the interrelationships of communication, technology, and politics in the context of the digitalisation of society. Research foci are, a.o., internet and platform governance and artificial intelligence.

Registration

The lectures take place in person at the Weizenbaum Institute. There is no registration needed. Online participation via Zoom is also possible. Please send us a short e-mail in advance for more details: kolloquium.rvw[at]weizenbaum-institut.de

About the Colloquium

The colloquium series discusses current topics related to the impact of digitalization on collective knowledge practices and bodies of knowledge from an interdisciplinary perspective. We regularly invite experts who research these questions through various interesting approaches. The colloquium series is both open to researchers from the Weizenbaum Institute as well as anyone interested.

You can find a list of all dates here