The Bauhaus University Weimar in focus: Experience future topics in 2025!

The Bauhaus University Weimar in focus: Experience future topics in 2025!

The event series “Beyond Now – Environments” begins on April 3, 2025 at the Bauhaus University Weimar, which is dedicated to the discussion of current social issues. The opening event will take place in the university's wind tunnel and marks the start of a themed year covering a wide range of core areas, including ecology, history, politics, economics, technology and aesthetics. Dr. Ulrike Kuch, the initiator of the series and vice president for social transformation, emphasizes the importance of the Bauhaus University as a place for social reflection and transformation.

The series includes events that deal with central questions of democracy as well as the role of artificial intelligence and history. For example, on April 10, 2025, the topics discussed will be “What is social transformation?” and on April 24th the focus will be on the “Future of Democracy”. These discursive formats are intended not only to open up academic perspectives, but also to arouse public interest and enable broad participation.

Topics and events

The events take place in the Oberlichtsaal or in the Maurice Halbwachs Auditorium every Thursday from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. In addition, a live stream is offered to increase accessibility. The plans for the 2025 summer semester include questions about artificial intelligence and its implications for society as well as the European perspective. In the winter semester 2025/2026, the topics of economy, city and country as well as media and society will be taken up.

The lectures and discussions bring together experts from various disciplines. The event on the “Future of Artificial Intelligence” on May 8, 2025 will include Henning Schmidgen and Benno Stein, among others. These issues are particularly relevant when considering the developments and challenges of digitalization, which have been seen as both a threat and an opportunity for democracy since the 1990s.

Artificial intelligence in focus

The social implications of artificial intelligence (AI) are both urgent and complex. Since ChatGPT was launched at the end of 2022, AI has gained enormous importance. Their application not only changes the way information is processed, but also political communication. Critical aspects such as manipulation and disinformation through AI systems represent fundamental challenges that are intended to be addressed during the events. bpb.de highlights that AI offers both benefits and risks to the democratic public.

Generative AI not only enables the production of content, but also has the potential to create deep fakes and other manipulative formats, which could threaten the integrity of democratic processes. These aspects are illuminated via the discussion formats at the Bauhaus University and increase awareness of the need for a critical examination of AI.

In addition, it highlights the need for democratically sensitive regulation of AI to ensure responsible and fair development of these technologies. The main aim of the event series is to create awareness of the challenges and opportunities of digitalization and to show how society, culture and education must interact in this context. Loud bpb.de This requires an actively designed discourse from the participants.

The events in the series therefore offer an important space for dialogue about social transformation in an increasingly digitalized world and attempt to find answers to pressing questions of the present and future.