NSFW

This week's song of the week is from a singer I have never heard of - which is a pity - but can't stop listening to here since having stumbled across he word.

Her name is Sophie Zelmani, she is Svedish and is compared - at least in her style - with Leonhard Cohen and Bob Dylan or with Neal Young and Van Morrison. She has a very polite, clean and meditative style that I love when travelling or working and it's hard to chose from the manyy beautiful songs she has created that come together into a rather homogenuous soundscape.

Let me take the one that was the first in my playlist and that is also the title song for her most recent album: Lake Geneva.

YouTube:

But also many other songs she made are lovely, for example

and, in particular.

I would recommend headphones to listen to hear as her voice is so delicate. Some of her work reminds me of Kate Bush although Perplexity tells me that that shouldn't be.

Retrospect

Timmendorfert Strand

Let me - again - recommend this as a nice place for a vacation. It's expensive, the food is often not really nice, there's plenty of mostly very German german tourism, etc. But it's also very nice, in particular the sea. Sitting in a "Strandkorb" is a good place to write, to read or just watch the seagulls.

Media. Law. Information

The conference we had this week was very fruitful. One of my personal learnings was that institutions, in particular Universities, but also courts, are more and more in crisis when it comes to the creation of "reality". "Official" academic knowledge is less and less accepted as true, with no further questions to be asked and it has become very difficult to agree on procedures on how facts can be created. I found it also somehow alarming that keynote speaker Dr. Maria Windhager critisised clearly the lack of scientific (legal) input in the ongoing debate(s) on truth in media.

Anna and Katja were terrific in organising this. Dr. Susanne Lackner from KomAustria wrote about the event on LinkedIn, Dr. Ranjana Andrea Achleitner did the same, as well as Prof. Dr. Leonhard Dobusch on Bluesky and LinkedIn.

Right Wing Extremism and the Law

On Tuesday, media reported about a large raid against Austrian neo-Nazis. On the very same day we had a panel debate on this in Juridicum.

Dr. Ronen Steinke highlighted in his keynote differences in law enforcement and political approaches against right wing extremism in the Austrian and the German tradition. Dr. Sylvia Mayer gave a brilliant overview on the phenomenon and its structure in Austria (and argued why online surveillance were necessary). They were joined by head of unit Dr. Fritz Zeder who highlighted, inter alia, the dependance on European legislative acts in the domain, such as, in particular the DSA.

The longer the debate lasted the more the DSA and its (lack of) enforcement came in focus. Audience and panel agreed that the relevant battles are not fought and won in courtrooms but in the daily public debate (and therefore also in social media) so that cooperation with and control of platforms is essential. Stefan made a brilliant yet rather pessimistic intervention from the audience that impressed a lott and triggered quite som efollow up discussions. Florian was a brilliant master of ceremony.

Prospect

Privacy Ring

The international conference format "Privacy Ring" is in Vienna again on September 18th from 15.30-18.30 and I will be on te panel.

Topic: Secure&Legal: Datenschutz in der digitalen Bedrohungslage

Venue: Hörsaal 1, UNIVIE Main Building

Free entry, no stream.

Joint Seminar with Kyoto University

On September 17th and September 18th, Univie will host a jount seminar with Kyoto University.

I will give a presentation on "What is a risk according to the European AI Act?"

#arsboni

Christo Buschek was so kind to accept an invitation into the laundry. I don't know yet when I am going to upload this but may I recommend for the meantime the recording of one of his speeches that inspired me to invite him.

Liminale

I am proud to speak (remotely) at Liminale in Hannover on Thusday, 18th of September.

My speaking slot starts at 12.ßß pm and my topic is "Wie viel Regulierung verträgt Innovation?".

Full programme available, registration possible the venue (FAUST) is worth the trip on its own!

Digital Legacy

Everybody is affected by digitalisation and AI - also (and in particular) libraries. This is why the subcomittee on legacy (Kommission für Nachlassbearbeitung) of the Austrian librarians' association (Vereinigung der Österreichischen Bibliothekarinnen und Bibliothekare) holds an online meeting on digital archives on Tuesday, September 16th, at 10.00 am.

I am invited to answer dozens of questions there, and most of them are unfortunately very difficult - such as this one:

I am not sure whether this is a public event (I think so) - it's a by invitation only Zoom-conference and login data can (presumably) be requested via the subcommittee.

Look and Feel

Niki Glattauer

I don't want to write about Glattauer's assisted suicide and the interview on his reasons that currently trigger plenty of attention and media ethics debate, but let me, instead, link again to "Arbeit und Struktur" (see Weekly 26/2025), to a remarkable text written by Christian Nusser and to:

Golli Marboe, author of "Notizen an Tobias", is one of the people behind the Papageno Media Award that rewards suicide preventive media coverage.

Demis Hassabis

Demis Hassabis, nobel prize winner and Google DeepMind CEO, gave a long interview in the Lex Fridman podcast that I listened to.

This is interesting for several reasons. First, because he is, of course, a very innovative and outstanding person, talking a lot about intelligence, consciousness, simulations and AGI where he sees a 50 % chance that we will have it until 2030.

Second, because it's really breathtaking how non-existent Universities are in his - very much research driven - world. It's obvious to both speakers that the relevant research is undertaken in major companies (no friendly words about Meta, though); niversities are not even mentioned.

And third, because law as a steering factor is non-existent in his mental universe either. He speaks a lot about the regulatory and societal changes coming with AI and how important philosophers and political scientists are in this process - but not a single word about law(yers).

If you are a lwayer and/or somehow affiliated with an academic institution, this is worth being heard. And you get, as a bonus, lots of information on recent AI research from a technological perspective.

Daisy

knows that autumn is coming and getting up early will become more difficult.

Have a wonderful week!

Kind regards

Nikolaus (Forgó)