At November 6, professor Barbara Prainsack will talk about the role of solidarity in our shaping of the future of emerging technologies in Europe. The event will be held at the Wageningen University at the Omnia building (Hoge Steeg 2, Wageningen), in the combined rooms Momentum 2 and 3. The event will take place between 16:30-18:00.
This event is organized by the Philosophy group of the Wageningen University and ELSA AI4SFS Lab.
The session will be organized as follows:
Social Sciences Group director Joost de Laat will welcome everyone and introduce the session
This introduction will be followed by a talk of approximately 20-25 minutes by Barbara Prainsack around themes in her book States of Solidarity: How to Build a Society (2026) and her experiences as Chair of the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies (EGE), which advises the European Commission. See the abstract below.
After this talk, first a panel of commentators, which consists of Zoë Robaey, Guido Camps, Dani Shanley, and Rachel Ankeny, will respond to the talk. After the panel, the audience will get the chance to respond in a facilitated discussion and Q&A.
After the event, there will be some drinks and bites.
Abstract talk Barbara Prainsack:
Whose data, whose future? Solidarity and the making of Europe's digital future
Artificial intelligence is reshaping how we work, heal, govern, and know each other - often without our consent, and not always to our benefit. A decade of AI ethics guidelines and calls for 'trustworthy AI' has changed little about who holds the power over our data and digital infrastructure. What if the problem is not that AI lacks the right values, but that we are asking the wrong question?
In this talk, I will argue that Europe needs more data solidarity. Rather than treating data as form of quasi-property - something to be owned, licensed, and extracted like oil - I propose a layered, public value approach to data and digital infrastructure: one where gains from data flow back to the people and communities who created the data. What would Europe's digital future look like if we built it this way?
Registration
You can register via the following form https://event.wur.nl/179893/registration