Generative AI & The Faces of Power

The workshop addresses the question of how to conceptualize the power relations associated with Generative Artificial Intelligence. It is accompanied by a public keynote by Rainer Mühlhoff (University of Osnabrück).

Workshop Program (open to Workshop Participants)

20 November 2025

14:30-15:00	Registration & Coffee
15:00-15:15	Opening Remarks (Clara Iglesias Keller)
15:15-17:15	Panel 1: De/Stabilisation of (Algorithmic) Knowledge (Chair: Ann-Kathrin Koster)
	Niclas Rautenberg (University of Hamburg): Artificial Intelligence, Calculative Reason, and Technical Domination: Lessons from Husserl, Heidegger, and Marcuse
	Anna Lena Menne (Paderborn University): Cracks in the Loop – Stabilization, Recomposition, and the Ambivalence of Rupture in LLM-Mediated Interaction
	Paola Lopez (University of Bremen): The Crude Power of Defining Truth in Large Language Models
	Anthony Obst (Freie Universität Berlin): ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ in the Mythological Machine: AI (Slop) and Right-Wing Culture
17:15-18:30	Dinner
18:30-20:00	Keynote (public): Rainer Mühlhoff (University of Osnabrück): The Power of AI: From Tech Ideologies to New Authoritarianisms

Please register for the public keynote here.

21 November 2025

9:00-10:30	Panel 2: Disputing Power (Chair: Florian Irgmaier)
	Sandra Sieron (WZB Berlin Social Science Center & Humboldt University Berlin): Falling Ahead? Governing the Modern Nation State Amidst the ‘AI Race’
	Mariana Valente (University of St. Gallen & InternetLab, Brazil): Redistributing Power Over Creative Agency in GenAI
	Hannah Friedrich (University of Freiburg): How Feminist Theory Helps Analyse the Power Behind AI’s Influence on Societies
10:30-11:00	Coffee
11:00-13:00	Panel 3: Relationality in (Algorithmic) Authority (Chair: Jana Heim)
	Clara Riedenstein (University of Oxford & Center for European Policy Analysis): Ask the Expert: Generative AI and the Changing Face of Authority
	Kostina Prifti (Erasmus School of Law Rotterdam & Centre of Excellence on Digital Governance): Power Manifestations of GenAI: A Healthcare Perspective
	Mariana Schütt (Friedrich Schiller University Jena): Mimetic Machines: Generative AI, Fictional Empathy, and the Faces of Power
	Stefan Schönwetter & Celestine Kleinesper (Deutsche Kinder- & Jugendstiftung): Algorithmic Authority, Language, and Epistemic (In)Justice in the School Context
13:00-14:00	Lunch
14:00-15:15	Panel 4: Inequality and Marginalisation (Chair: Sebastian Berg)
	Paula Muhr (Brand University of Applied Sciences, Hamburg), Charlotte Tumescheit (University of Zurich), Janna Hastings (University of Zurich) & Lucas Caluori (University of Hamburg): Intersecting Powers of AI-Generated Body Images: Insidious Influence, Normative Beauty, and Epistemic Exclusion
	Vinit Ravishankar (University of Copenhagen): Domination, Expropriation, and AI Infrastructure Expansion
	Ömer Faruk Kulak (Kadir Has University Istanbul & Istanbul Policy Center): Who Gets to Generate? Generative AI and the Reproduction of Epistemic Inequality
15:15-15:30	Closing Remarks (Clara Iglesias Keller)

Contact

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate and contact us: workshop-generative-ai[at]wzb.eu