“The system is failing” – stated by the founder of the Web, Tim Berners-Lee – emphasizes that while digitalization opens unprecedented opportunities, it also raises serious concerns: the monopolization of the Web, the rise of extremist opinions and behavior orchestrated by social media, the formation of filter bubbles and echo chambers as islands of disjoint truths, the loss of privacy, and the spread of digital surveillance.

Digital technologies are disrupting societies and questioning our understanding of what it means to be human. Digital Humanism deals with the complex relationships between people and machines in digital times. It acknowledges the potential of information technology. At the same time, it points to societal threats such as privacy violations and ethical concerns around artificial intelligence, automation and loss of jobs, ongoing monopolization on the Web, and sovereignty.

Former dean of the faculty of informatics /TU Wien and one of the initiators of the Vienna Manifesto on Digital Humanism, Prof. em. Hannes Werthner, will address these topics with a sense of urgency but with a constructive mindset.