In her keynote “Automating Freedom: Neo-liberalism, Artificial Intelligence, and Politics”, Orit Halpern interrogates the history of models of decision-making and agency in machine learning, neo-liberal economic thought, and finance in order to understand how reactionary politics, civil rights, and technology are being reformulated in our present. While the relationship between the Right, post-truth, suggestion algorithms, and social media has long been documented, rarely has there been extensive investigation of how ideas of choice and freedom become recast in a manner amenable to machine automation, financialization, and to particular brands of post-1970s alt-Right discourses. An analysis of this history demonstrates a new logic within algorithmic and artificial intelligent rationalities that intersects with, but is also not merely a repetition of, earlier histories of reason, eugenics, sexism, and racism. This situation provokes serious challenges to political action, but also to our theorization of democracy, collectivity, and diversity. 

The keynote will be followed by a panel discussion with Orit Halpern, Hannah Fitsch (Weizenbaum Institute) and Alexandra Keiner (Weizenbaum Institute). Afterward, we will open up for a Q&A with the audience and invite you to join us for some drinks.