Tuesday evening in Presseclub Concordia with Ivan Krastev and Vikram Rajan.

Retrospect

AI Advisory Board

Austria has a new advisory board (if anything, there is no lack of advisory boards in this country). Tis time it’s on AI and it was presented to the public -together with a service unit on AI (“KI Servicestelle”) - on Tuesday by state secretary Tursky and media minister Raab.

I could take so nice pictures from the front as i needed to sit in the frst row as one of the eight members of the board. The other members are (titles ommitted) Horst Bischof (TU Graz), Markus Fallenböck (Uni Graz), Walter Peissl (Akademie der Wissenschaften), Bernhard Moser (ASAI), Clara Neppel (IEEE Technology Centre GmbH), Sabine T. Köszegi (TU Wien), and Carina Zehetmaier (Women in AI).

I found it stunning how positve the assessment of the AI-act and, in particular, Europe’s and Austria’s competitiveness in the relevant industries were.

Some press coverage: OTS, Der Standard, OE24, Vienna.at, Brutkasten, LinkedIn, LinkedIn, LinkedIn.

There is nothing on content related work undertaken by the board to report yet, though - and nothing to report on the precise wording of the AI act either, as the text is not yet existing. My personal award for the most misleading statement on the matter goes, once again, to Thierry Breton (neither is the EU a continent nore is the EU the first legislation with regulation).

Ivan Krastev

Ivan Krastev - whom I deeply admire - spoke at Presseclub Concordia (that I admire as well) on Tuesday. The session was recorded and is available on Spotify. One of the many interesting perspectives provided was his statement that only the west believes not to be in a war with Russia and that it’s difficult to win a war you don’t think you are in.

Policy Thinking Panel

I was invited to join a guest lecture at Technical University Vienna, organised by Prof. Dr. Peter Purgathofer with my fellow AI-board member Prof. Dr. Sabine T. Köszegi on Thursday. Topic was - again - mainly AI and AIA, but also tech regulation.

Ars Boni

I had two sessions, both of them really thought provoking.

Astrid Hainzl gave an eye-opening and haunting insight on ME/CFS - this is in my personal Top-3 #arsboni sessions of this year - I would highly recommend to watch it.

And Oliver Loksa, a specialist for white collar crime, helped me to further reflect and learn on “Zitierverbote” in criminal law.

Paxlovid

The - very heated - debate on the supply failure of Paxlovid (that I might have co-initiated) continued. A fellow pseudonymus Twitter-User sent me the (internal) communication delivered to Austrian pharmacies on Saturday and I think that everyone should know this.

The best text on the matter stems, in my view, from Christan Nusser.

Commute

The moment I am finishing this I am at the University in Bonn (cold, rainy, foggy, as usual) following Martin Hofmann-Apitius opening the session.

Some basic info on the event is on Fraunhofer’s website. This is a very relevant project and will (hopefully) be high on my priority list.

I taught (online) from a seminar room with board drawings presumably made by biology students (I like the octopus most).

Prospect

Ars Boni

I will publish the interview with Simon Hessenthaler on December 20th at 14.00 CET. If things go well I will also have an #arsboni interview in the laundry with Hessenthaler’s attorney, Dr. Oliver Scherbaum.(We have agreed to do this but are still searching for a suitable timeslot.

On Tuesday, Dec. 19, I will speak with a member of the German Bundestag (Parliament), Dr. Martin Plum, on (the lack of) legal information in Germany. Plum is a lawyer by training and a judge. He has criticised, in particular, JURIS significantly.

Data Protection Moot Court (DPMC) Grand Finale

This will be streamed live on Monday, December 18th, at 19.00 CET.

I am a proud jury member there and you can follow live and express your thoughts and opinions.

Conference on 3D-Printing

We are hosting a conference on 3D-printing on Tuesday. Registration is still possible! - here s the programme. I am supposed to talk about “Verschwindet das Sachenrecht? Immaterialgüterrechtliche Überlegungen zum 3D-Druck”.

Athens

My last business trip of this year will lead me to Athens for an EU-consortium meeting. Trustee is developing a “Trust & Privacy Preserving Computing Platform For Cross-Border Federation Of Data”, here is the project’s website. We are the partner dealing with the legal aspects.

privacy4kids

This - very nice - project on data protection for children was positively assessed by the Austrian Parliament in a resolution (“Entschließung des Nationalrats”) supported by four of the five parliamentary parties earlier this year.

It might be that the resolution’s author, member of parliament Mag. Christian Drobits, will oganise a press conference on the project and its usage in Austrian schools on Friday 22. If that should happen I will join. This will most likely be my last official appointment in 2023.

Daisy

is not yet in Christmas mood.

Have a wonderful week! Christmas is coming!

Kind regards

Nikolaus (Forgó)