Artificial intelligence is undoubtedly one of the most exciting—but also one of the most controversial—developments of our time. Its rapid advancement raises many questions, and we would like to discuss them with you.
Artificial intelligence is undoubtedly one of the most exciting—but also one of the most controversial—developments of our time. Its rapid progress is now fueling growing uncertainty—even leading developers admit they can no longer fully control the technology. This dynamic inevitably evokes literary associations: It brings to mind Mary Shelley’s *Frankenstein*, where the creature turns against its creator, or Goethe’s famous *The Sorcerer’s Apprentice* and its desperate exclamation: “Lord, the distress is great! The spirits I summoned, I cannot now get rid of.” In addition to ethical questions, the environmental burden also weighs heavily: The resource consumption of AI data centers is enormous and rising incessantly. Training GPT-4 alone consumed around 600 million liters of water. In 2025, all data centers worldwide consumed about 450 terawatt-hours of electricity—on a global scale, that would rank eleventh among the most electricity-hungry countries. Added to this are massive societal challenges posed by copyright infringements, deceptively realistic deepfakes, and the rapid spread of misinformation. The further this technology advances, the more urgent the central questions about our future become: Is AI a curse or a blessing? Does it pose real dangers to humanity? Will we soon be working only for machines, and will AI ultimately even deprive us of our livelihoods? We would like to discuss these and other fascinating questions with you.
Space is limited, so please register:
Ribnitz-Damgarten City Library, Im Kloster 4, 18311 Ribnitz-Damgarten, Tel.: 0 38 21 - 89 34 52 0
