On June 22nd, 2023, DataEthics.eu invited its Affiliated Scholars: Carolina Aguerre, Rikke Frank Jørgensen, Frank Pasquale, Nathalie Smuha, and Aimee van Wynsberghe, for a discussion on Generative AI. DataEthics.eu was represented by Director of Research Gry Hasselbalch and Academic Coordinator Natalia Stanusch. Instead of treating Generative AI from a single angle or with a pre-defined aim as many discussions currently tend to do, the meeting was meant to open the intellectual box to critically engage with Generative AI. The meeting resulted in the following paper which discusses theoretical and practical approaches to Generative AI. It also offers a much-needed historically grounded and humanistic debate which combines various pressure points and scholarly efforts. The following arguments critically engage with the fact that Generative AI is not simply the applications and models such as ChatGPT but an entire unsustainable infrastructure that we, as humans, are slowly locking ourselves into.
