Autumn Lecture Series of the SCRIPTS Forum 20269.10.2026 {en}

The convenors are pleased to announce the Autumn Lecture Series of the SCRIPTS Forum 2026 (https://www.scripts-berlin.eu/research/scripts-forum) „Emergent Digital (Dis-)Orders: AI Governance between Liberal and Authoritarian Scripts“ organized by Prof. Dr. Genia Kostka from the Institute for Chinese Studies (FU Berlin) and Prof. Dr. Anita Gohdes from the Hertie School.

In five online lectures, the series explores the relationship between AI and political order. As AI is not merely a technical innovation but also a political instrument, it can foster transparency and democratic inclusion, while also enabling manipulation and authoritarian control.

The five online lectures at a glance:

October 15, 2pm | Ting Luo (University of Birmingham) Made in China vs. Made in America: Do Large Language Models Differ in Governance Values? (online only)

Ting Luo takes us into the world of LLM development, where she argues that different political values are reflected in US vs. Chinese AI systems and that this can affect, for instance, political content, loan application or job applications.

November 3, 4pm | Shazeda Ahmed (UCLA) Transpacific Utilitarianism: The Political Projects of AI Value Alignment in China and the United States (online only)

Shazeda Ahmed (UCLA), examines how the concept of AI alignment is shaped by competing political agendas in China and the US ? and whose values ultimately get built into these systems.

November 12, 2pm | Marcus Bösch (TH Köln) It Feels Harmless: Synthetic Propaganda and the Postdigital Condition (online only)

Marcus Bösch shows how cute, AI-generated cats on TikTok and ?vibey? far-right edits can drift through the same feed and explains this with slop increasingly becomes a vehicle for ?postdigital propaganda?, thus disordering discourse and ordering affect.

November 17, 4pm | Lynette Ong (University of Toronto) Outsourcing Surveillance: Online Public Management in China (online only)

Lynette Ong asks how China can handle its massive surveillance apparatus and, through interviews and public documents, finds that the state has outsourced online surveillance to private and for-profit arms of state-owned corporations, thereby increasing technical capacity and finetuning digital repression.

November 26, 2pm | Christian Katzenbach (Universität Bremen) The Discursive Order of AI: Racing from Myths to AI Governance (online only)

Christian Katzenbach argues that the performative politics of AI also materializes in the debate on AI governance. He looks at the origins of AI as an object of fundamental controversy, the powerful discourses around it and the actors who drove this process.

Please register here https://fu-berlin.webex.com/webappng/sites/fu-berlin/webinar/webinarSeries/register/0917d7f4b12c4821aba6a59819d25f7c