Mapping Empires by Kate Crawford

Lecture

The current phase of artificial intelligence is often described as a rupture, as fundamentally new. But what if it is a redrawing of historical patterns? Drawing on her research into the genealogies of technology and power over centuries, Crawford situates today's AI within a much older story. Following the imperial pathways of power since 1500, her talk explores how the systems today echo earlier histories of colonialism, militarization, and automation. Frontier models are no longer treated merely as products but as strategic assets and instruments of statecraft, subject to the logics of sovereignty and control. The geopolitics of AI are the latest instantiation of an older imperial grammar, where knowledge production is grounded in extraction, classification, and dominion.

Following Panel Discussion

• Professor Kate Crawford: Leading scholar of artificial intelligence and its material impacts and Professor at the University of Southern California, leads the Knowing Machines Project and is the author of Atlas der Ki
• Dr. Lena Ulbricht: Associate Researcher in the research group “Technology, Power and Governance” at the Weizenbaum Institute and Professor of Political Science and Digitalisation at the University of Hildesheim
• Prof. Tobias Schäffter: President of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), Germany’s National Metrology Institute. He is also Professor of Biomedical Imaging at TU Berlin and the Einstein Center Digital Future.
• Moderation: Tobi Müller, Cultural journalist and author

The event will be held in English.

Event partner is the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften.