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Dr. Andreas Sesing-Wagenpfeil from Helmut Schmidt University of the Bundeswehr Hamburg will give a lecture titled "Generative AI from a Legal Perspective: Copyright, Data Protection and Obligations under the AI Act" as part of the Lecture Series on AI in Science and Society on July 4, 2025, from 14:15 to 15:45 in room H27 (GW II).

Abstract: In this talk, I revisit Langdon Winner’s influential critique of the neutrality thesis—the idea that technologies are politically neutral and only acquire meaning through use. While Winner argues that certain technologies can be inherently political, I propose a more ontologically modest interpretation of this claim, which avoids strong forms of technological determinism while retaining its critical force. I then explore what it might mean to apply this revised framework to contemporary forms of artificial intelligence, especially generative AI and large language models (LLMs). By examining the political affordances, design choices, and epistemic structures embedded in LLMs, I raise the question of whether—and in what sense—these systems can be said to "have politics.“