Dusseldorf “In the perception of many people, technology has arrived where it belongs,” says Meckel – namely “as a medium of civilizational upheaval”. Never before has technology – positively or negatively – been so much at the center of geopolitics as it is today. A particularly striking example of this is the scandal surrounding the Chinese video platform Tiktok, which is suspected of being monitored by the government, says Meckel. Or billionaires using new technologies to prepare for the end of the world.
But the conversation goes far beyond the gloomy scenarios. Meckel and Matthes also talk about sociological questions, such as the skepticism of many Germans towards new technologies, digital deficits in politics and the question of whether artificial intelligence has a consciousness. Meckel believes that this is one of the most complex questions of our time, because human consciousness was not even remotely understood.
That’s why we can only speculate: “Maybe there is something like a mathematical consciousness” that artificial intelligence can develop on the basis of its data, calculation and analysis skills, she says. But instead of attributing this competence to a machine, says Meckel, people should first try to “understand themselves a little better and explore their own consciousness”.
The publicist also talks about her own history as a tinkerer, professor, state secretary and start-up founder, personal crises, the lessons of her burnout and her passion for technology.
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More: The previous episode of Handelsblatt Disrupt can be found here.