From the perspective of your research field, what are the biggest challenges Europe is facing at the moment, and what are the biggest opportunities?

'Industrial policy is back in the field of European infrastructure and technology. In previous years, the European Union mainly sought to protect the privacy and rights of its citizens through regulation, but there is a strong sentiment that regulations are no longer enough and that European technology is necessary. However, what European technology actually is, what it does, who will build it, and how it can be harnessed remain open questions.'

'Is technology there as an engine for economic growth and competition with the US and China? Is infrastructure the basis for a green transition? Will European technology inscribe different values in society and distribute power and possibilities? Will European technology be characterized by its ability to stop armies and immigrants at the borders?'

'Often, the answer is now: all of the above. But many of these things are at odds with each other. A battle for the heart and soul of future technologies is currently raging, and, like with other technologies such as the Internet, today's investments will influence infrastructure and technological trajectories for decades to come.'

What developments, people, or events should we look out for in the coming year?

'The imaginary that functions as a crystal in which many people see reflected what they would like to see and is also generating policy traction is the concept of 'the Eurostack'. The idea of the Eurostack gained traction after a conference at the European Parliament last year, followed by a pitch-paper from a group of contributors, including Cristina Caffarra.'

'The conversation continued with a report by Francesca Bria, Fausto Gernone, and Paul Timmers. Now there is a new paper that is not merely the discussing the what, but also the how, namely through strategic procurement, steering demand, setting market trajectories, and more coordinated funding programmes.'

The role of technology in democratic processes, including voting systems and public discourse, is often debated. How do you see technology influencing democracy in both positive and negative ways over the next decade?

'We are living in sobering times with regard to democracy. Civic space has been shrinking over the last two decades. This was precisely the period in which we experienced an explosion of digital technologies. I think the co-occurrence of these two phenomena should at least give us pause to consider technology's role in democratic practices. Rather, we should think about how democracy can be harnessed to guide the development, propagation, and integration of technology in our society, government, and personal lives.' 

'We could use this historical moment to doubt the arrow of technological progress and instead ask how technology can be used for societal progress. Mere competition with the US and China is not sufficient an answer because we would be competing who pushes us over the edge of 3 degrees Celsius in global warming or who uses up the last space in Earth's orbit with satellites.'

'By this point, increasing internet connectivity will benefit online gambling markets, the advertisement industry, and the surveillance industry more than knowledge dissemination. Open access to research articles offered by large publishers is still, by and large, an extortion scheme by the big publishers. If physical public libraries were invented today, they would be ruled illegal.'

How do you see emerging technologies, like artificial intelligence and blockchain, reshaping the global balance of power? Are there specific regions or countries that you believe will be particularly impacted?

'I could not be happier to see the hype trends of blockchain, metaverse, NFTs, and Web3 go the way of the dodo; I cannot wait for the concepts of AI, smart cities, and IoT to follow suit. These are not technological developments; they are marketing campaigns driven by industry to create artificial demand. And we are falling for it hook, line, and sinker again, and again, and again. We should know better by now. Everyone who uses it knows that generative AI should be dubbed 'generic AI' because it will never produce something that would surprise someone who knows something about a topic. Why do we give creative tasks to a technology that is statistically trained to give you the most mediocre answer?'

'The coming decades I hope we can think better about what it is we actually want, and through this have better choices for both democracy _and_ technology. This will involve stronger democratic governmental and civil society institutions than we have now. Only this can in positive and meaningful way reshape the global balance of power, not who will produce a 1 nanometer semiconductor. That might provide some technological advantages, but it will not change society.'

As technology continues to advance, how can policymakers ensure that ethical considerations, such as privacy and fairness, are prioritized in its development and use?

'Technology can develop in many different ways - and this is in large part shaped by its environment: governmental regulation and funding, research and education, and industrial capacity. These are not things that respond well to short-course corrections; we should develop a long-term vision of what we want technologies to do. What are the societal challenges for which we would like to harness technology? Universities themselves are a societal technology for knowledge production; we have invested in them for many years, and they have brought society a lot. We should do something similar with internet technologies. Currently, the internet infrastructure is being reshaped to facilitate synchronized high-quality streaming of content. Why? To aid the betting and gambling industry because this is a fast-growing revenue market. This is not the behaviour we want; this is not the technology we want; this is not the infrastructure we want, and this is not the future we want.'

'Unequal societies will produce technologies that will reproduce inequalities. If anything can be learned from the current time is that we have made some very wrong choices, and now it is up for us to correct them.'