Privacy is not Power, but what is?

Philosopher Björn Lundgren from the Centre for Philosophy and AI Research (FAU Erlangen) will join us in person on May 7th, 2026 – 11am at HLRS Room Berkeley. 

A stream will be available at
https://unistuttgart.webex.com/unistuttgart/j.php?MTID=m6e7fcf16a09d5ce65361e3681bb5d21e

Björn will continue our AI ethics lecture series with a talk on privacy in the age of AI.

Abstract

Data is the fuel of many AI-systems, but at what cost? In her book, Privacy is Power, Carissa Véliz argues that we must provide absolute privacy protections because, otherwise, we will suffer both individually and collectively from power asymmetries in politics, economics, and social life. In particular, Véliz is concerned with maintaining a functioning liberal democracy. In this talk, it is argued that the worries raised by Véliz cannot be resolved by protecting privacy alone; instead, these worries are due to diminishments of the closely related concept of “informational autonomy”, which will be qualified in this talk. Moreover, it is shown that the problems identified by Véliz have no simple overarching solution—such as absolute protection of privacy or informational autonomy—because we face a set of contextually sensitive tradeoffs.