As part of the German Federal Government’s Open Day on August 23 and 24, 2025, the Federal Foreign Office invited guests to a special “State Visit.” In the Weltsaal, Ulrike Klinger (University of Amsterdam) and Andreas Nitsche (LiquidFeedback, PERYCLES) discussed the question: “Artificial Intelligence – Opportunity or Threat to Democracies?” The conversation was moderated by Siyuan He (Federal Foreign Office).
Klinger and Nitsche explored symbolic and subsymbolic AI and their respective fields of application. Their exchange touched on issues such as the manipulation of public opinion, the growing challenge of deep fakes, algorithmic decision-making, and the role of artificial intelligence in digital democracy. They also addressed prompt literacy, critical thinking and source evaluation, interdisciplinary approaches and data literacy, as well as human–machine collaboration, ethics, and responsibility. “The way people interact with large language models fosters the illusion of a competent conversation partner—yet this is a situation that humans are cognitively unprepared to deal with,” emphasized Andreas Nitsche.
The discussion was then opened up to the audience, who contributed a wide range of questions and perspectives. These included questions of copyright and regulation, the ethical implications of autonomous weapon systems, the opportunities and risks of self-driving cars, and broader concerns about ethics and artificial intelligence.
Both panelists were fellows at the Thomas Mann House in Los Angeles, and the panel was organized in cooperation with Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House e. V. (VATMH).
