What's the most important question right now?

I believe it is important not to be afraid to design change "on the drawing board." When I started at public broadcaster BR in the new position of "trimedial production coordinator," (way back in 2017) there was certainly a lot of uncertainty among my long-established colleagues. You have to get everyone on board so that they are open to new ideas. Processes need to become more agile and you have to adapt to new things more quickly. Ultimately after two years, the position was considered successful by everyone, editors and management alike, and was also continued at other BR locations. If the attempt had not been made and the confidence to simply try it out had not been there, it would not have been possible to dispel the concerns.

The recent ZDF scandal also shows that certain processes need to be adapted more quickly to current requirements. Perhaps an "innovation scout" would be a good start, not only in the editorial office but also in smaller local editorial offices. Someone who attends AI conferences or media innovation camps and takes away the concerns of all the journalists and media employees out there.

What's one fact about AI that everyone should know?

What it can do, but above all what it cannot do.

There are so many dynamics that users are still unaware of. For example, catastrophic forgetting. If you look at how AI learns, you understand much better where its limits are – and in my opinion, knowing these limits is much more important than finding the perfect prompt.

What's a good hobby to pick up?

My co-founder Anatol Maier and I have developed our new hobby 'AI Slop Hunting.' Whenever we are in a furniture store or department store, we 'hunt' for objects that have visible AI slop printed on them instead of neat graphics. Sometimes it's hard to believe, but AI slop is already everywhere. As a deepfake detection start-up, it is very important to us that images from generative AI do not simply flood everything, but are only used sensibly and qualitatively. By the way, you can test your own AI recognition skills on our website wefightfakes.org (for non-German speakers, simply click on 'play'). We can't wait to collect more AI Slop photos from everywhere.