Laura Fichtner

Laura Fichtner is an interdisciplinary researcher with a background in engineering, Science and Technology Studies, and the philosophy and ethics of science and technology. For her recently concluded PhD project at University of Hamburg’s Ethics in Information Technology group, she analyzed how democratic values, and their associated social order, were publicly contested during the introduction of the Network Enforcement Act in Germany.

Laura’s research generally focuses on how actors conceptualize the societal and normative dimensions of information technologies, how political realities and social order are (re-)negotiated within tech ethics and governance discourses, and how to democratically govern the techno-political processes such discourses legitimate.

While at the Weizenbaum-Institut, Laura will critically analyze the current debate around the ethics and governance of generative AI such as ChatGPT-4 and trace the controversy that ensued in the AI community following the publication of the so-called “AI pause letter.” The project aims to identify and constructively take on the political contentions that underlie struggles over definitional authority in AI ethics debates.