“In a world that is foreseeably shaped by data-intensive, self-learning AI in all areas of life, we are like yesterday’s data idiots,” says Miriam Meckel.
(Photo: dpa)
Much can be learned about the German soul by browsing through the large collection of German proverbs on the subject of saving. There you come across remarkable wisdom: “Whoever desires thrift, the mother, will be given wealth, the daughter.” For many reasons, this is a horrible insight into the German soul, this mixture of narrow-mindedness and sleaze, about which one prefers don’t want to think any longer. One thing, however, this adage might finally help us to grasp is that we need a generational and attitude shift in frugality.
Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner knows the problem. He once again felt the wave of German “bourgeois austerity” when he presented the return on shares as a contribution to “generational capital”. People need security for their old-age provision, so the outcry of those who are frugal and far-sighted. They don’t want to understand that returns on shares are an essential part of every portfolio in the long term – even in a state endowment that is intended to secure our pension future on the capital market.
But the Germans like to save on everything. They prefer to leave their money lying around unused in their current account (2022: 42 percent) or hoard it in their savings account (35 percent). Less than a fifth of Germans accumulate wealth through shares, in the USA it is around 60 percent.
Unfortunately, the German spirit of saving is not only becoming a problem when it comes to dealing with money. We are also building up the future in a completely different area – at least if we want to help shape it in Germany and not just passively use what others are creating for us.
The Federal Data Protection Act, but also the EU General Data Protection Regulation, define the right to privacy by “collecting, processing or using as little personal data as possible” (BDSG Paragraph 3a). This principle of “data economy” goes back to the census ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court of 1983, in which the court introduced “informational self-determination”: the individual decides on the disclosure and use of personal data.
Forty years later, we watch with wide eyes as the future unfolds before our eyes in a field we enter but don’t play: the great language models that spawn applications like ChatGPT and Dall-e. They only exist at all because data wealth is possible in other parts of the world. These models, also known as “foundational models”, “basic models” ignited the next development stage of the Internet at the end of 2022. The USA and China are currently building these foundations. Unfortunately not in Germany.
Miriam Meckel is a German journalist and entrepreneur. She is co-founder and CEO of ada Learning GmbH. She also teaches as a professor for communication management at the University of St. Gallen.
(Photo: Klawe Rzeczy)
It is therefore time to address a few misconceptions that will cost us a lot of money on our German savings accounts. The AI models that are currently moving the world are improving through self-learning processes. To do this, they need vast amounts of data, the use of which cannot be precisely defined and documented in advance, as is required by us. To make this possible, we don’t need to compromise privacy.
Angela Merkel: Data is the raw material of the future
Data can be made anonymous so that it can be used for progress without being able to be assigned individually. Many industries know this very well. Because they can’t get any further in Germany, numerous pharmaceutical companies, for example, are doing more and more of their research in the USA. It is also already possible to foresee what advantages Microsoft and OpenAI will derive from integrating the ChatGPT model into the Bing search engine and the Office package. Millions of users worldwide will help to make the model and its applications better and better.
Incidentally, it was former Chancellor Angela Merkel who said in her speech on German Industry Day 2016: “We must also have a social debate about the fact that data is the raw material of the future and that the principle of data economy once given to us by the Federal Constitutional Court is not more in line with today’s added value.” In the meantime, another seven years have passed, but we continue to solve the problem of individual data security by restricting principles and quantities.
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In a world that is expected to be shaped by data-intensive, self-learning AI in all areas of life, we are like the data idiots of yesterday. Data economy becomes future economy. Maybe there are a few daughters and sons who can explain the general conditions of contemporary global desires to their mothers and fathers?
In this column, Miriam Meckel writes fortnightly about ideas, innovations and interpretations that make progress and a better life possible. Because what the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the rest of the world calls a butterfly. ada-magazin.com
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