SUMMA SUMMARUM 2017

The ACADEMIA SUPERIOR annual report of 2017

Unex­pect­ed polit­i­cal deci­sions, ongo­ing reli­gious and glob­al con­flicts, ter­ror­ist threats, a pop­ulist-fueled cri­sis of con­fi­dence in exist­ing sys­tems, social media tar­get­ing to influ­ence opin­ions, and the rapid devel­op­ment of new tech­nolo­gies, intel­li­gent sys­tems, and med­ical treat­ment options with unclear con­se­quences — all these devel­op­ments con­fronts the world with pre­vi­ous­ly unimag­in­able challenges.

ACADEMIA SUPERIOR has there­fore asked the ques­tion of whether every­thing threat­ens to get out of con­trol. With the goal of devel­op­ing rec­om­men­da­tions for deci­sion-mak­ers in our coun­try, we have sought out extra­or­di­nary peo­ple to help find ways to gain con­fi­dence and scope for the future.

Four top­ics pro­vide insight into the com­plex­i­ty of the ques­tions that should already occu­py us today in order to pre­pare for the future:

Subjects

  • Pol­i­tics & Democ­ra­cy deals with the ques­tion of whether democ­ra­cy is in cri­sis, how to strength­en its foun­da­tions and devel­op demo­c­ra­t­ic systems.
  • Media & Opin­ion deals with the role of the media in demo­c­ra­t­ic deci­sion-mak­ing, fil­ter bub­bles and the dan­ger of influ­enc­ing via „fake news” and social media.
  • The chap­ter Med­i­cine & Nutri­tion not only talks about new tech­nolo­gies and treat­ment meth­ods in med­i­cine, but also shows once again that nutri­tion­al knowl­edge is the key to a healthy and long life.
  • Arti­fi­cial & Intel­li­gent are the tech­nolo­gies that will take human­i­ty to the next lev­el: From self-dri­ving cars to a uni­ver­sal trans­la­tor, the ulti­mate goal is to make these sys­tems trust­wor­thy and safe.

This pub­li­ca­tion is only avail­able in German.