September 17, Carl Öhman - Gods of data

Everyone agrees that the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) may pose serious dangers to democracy. But how we perceive the nature and gravity of these dangers depends on the concepts and metaphors we use for it. So, what are AI systems? ‘Synthetic minds’ that may escape their confines and take over humanity? ‘Stochastic parrots’ that reify a racist and sexist past? Or perhaps ‘mirrors of code’ that distort reality? 
In my forthcoming book Gods of Data, I propose an alternative answer: They are gods. In a theological sense, gods refer to supernatural beings beyond time and space. Obviously, this is nothing like AI. In an anthropological sense, however, gods are rather to be seen as the personified authority of a group over time—a social mechanism that molds a collective of ancestors into a unified voice. And this is exactly what AI systems have become—vast volumes of past data compressed into a single agency, a personification of our digital ancestors. Why is this analogy important? Because it allows us to review the dangers of AI in a completely new light. Specifically, it opens the door to religious critique—one of the richest traditions of Western thought—as a depository of critical perspectives applicable to AI. 
Specifically, in the chapter I intend to present at the research seminar, titled The Political Theology of AI, I draw on Lefort, Nietzsche, Arendt, and Schmitt to articulate what is at stake as we increasingly outsource political deliberation to machines. AI, with its jaw-dropping ability to predict the outcomes of both policy and communicative action, threatens democracy not because it is opaque, biased or unpredictable, but because, like a god, it offers a relief from the fundamental uncertainty upon which democracy rests—a way to fill what Lefort calls the “empty place” of democracy with the predictive authority of the past. As such, the true political danger of AI is not that it will become too smart and take over, but that we, like our pre-modern predecessors, become mere subjects to our history rather than being the subjects of it. 
Carl Öhman earned his PhD in 2020 from the University of Oxford. His research focuses broadly on the politics and ethics of AI and has been covered by media outlets such as New York Times, BBC and TIME Magazine. In 2020 he was named the UK’s #1 early career researcher in the arts and humanities by Scopus. His book The Afterlife of Data, was listed by Nature, The Economist and The Guardian as one of 2024's top 10 books and has been translated into 8 languages, incl. Chinese, Arabic and Spanish. 

October 29 Maria Mälksoo – Ritual Deterrence: All Unquiet on the Eastern Front
 

Maria Mälksoos Project website 
 

Deterrence is not a relic of the Cold War, but a newly urgent feature of contemporary international relations, as Russia’s war against Ukraine highlights only too well. But how is deterrence made to matter in international politics and what does deterrence do politically for the communities that practice it? How are credible threats and commitments accomplished in international security and memory politics, for example by international alliances (such as NATO), and national memory laws? How do we know whether our attempted dissuasion of an opponent has actually worked, if the proof of deterrence’s success is nothing much happening – for the would-be challenger is refraining from the feared action? What explains the persisting political appeal of deterrence as an international conflict management strategy despite its indeterminate success rate and exorbitant material and political costs – particularly in case of nuclear deterrence?
The EU-funded RITUAL DETERRENCE project investigates deterrence through the lens of ritual theory, to understand its political and psychological effects in international relations. It explores the role of ritual action in making deterrence effective, affectively charged and credible in the eyes of its practitioners. The research will be based on a set of in-depth qualitative case studies investigating historical and contemporary contexts: nuclear deterrence in NATO-Warsaw Pact relations during the Cold War, NATO-Russia deterrence dynamics in the post-Cold War era; USA-Russia cyber and hybrid deterrence relations; USA-China deterrence relationship in the post-Cold War era, and memory-political deterrence in Eastern Europe.

Maria Mälksoo is Professor of International Relations at the Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen. Her research interests cut across International Relations theory, Critical Security Studies, political anthropology and memory politics. She is the project leader of RITUAL DETERRENCE, working on NATO-Russia deterrence dynamics in the post-Cold War era, with a focus on NATO’s eastern flank and memory-political deterrence.

(5 november) Lisa Herzog - The Democratic Marketplace: How a More Equal Economy Can Save Our Political Ideals
 

December 17, Patrik Hall – The New Public Bureaucracy
 

In Sweden there are clear signs of bureaucratisation – too many staff are directing, administering and controlling operations rather than operationally carrying out the operations. How is this happening? 

A fundamental reason is that the status of advanced administrative positions in public organisations has become higher than the work within the core operations. These administrative positions are also not subject to the same mandatory financial control as the operational operations. An increasing number of politically determined rules also contribute to bureaucratisation. Finally, there is a driving force to create the “modern organization”, which leads to internal ambiguities about what the core mission actually is and how it should be carried out. 

A special category of personnel of specific interest are organisational professionals – academically educated administrators with the organisation as their profession. These work organisational accountabilities both externally – towards politics and public agencies – and internally, towards their own organisation. 

The strengthening of organisational accountability seems to be due to an increasingly fragmented public sector as well as the popularity of management educations.

Patrik Hall is a professor in political science at the Department of Global Political Studies, Malmö University. During recent years he have been conducting research in management reforms, bureaucratization and the growth of management professions within the public sector. He has also carried out research on organisational meetings. This lecture is the outcome of a research project comparing the growth of organizational professionalism in New Zealand and Sweden. 

Together with Karl Löfgren, Wellington University, in a few months he will be publishing the book “The New Public Bureaucracy: The Expansion of Organisational Professionals in the Public Sector" (e-elgar.com)”