DSI Spotlights

DSI Spotlights shed light on individual aspects of digitalization in short videos.
The experts are all part of the Digital Society Initiative (DSI) at the University of Zurich and deal with topics of digital transformation and their impact on society.

Watch the ten videos here – with subtitles in German and English.
Subtitles can be activated by clicking on the CC symbol. You can change the language (German or English) in the settings (⚙️ symbol, bottom right) and via «Captions».

Our world is becoming increasingly digital. Is a sustainable future even possible with this development? Or will digitalization, thanks to artificial intelligence, even be the solution to all our sustainability issues? Dr. Mario Angst conducts research on urban sustainability transformations, digitalization and governance at the Digital Society Initiative (DSI) at the University of Zurich and explains in the video what is needed for the future to both be digital and sustainable.


 

The average age of gamers is now over 30, and in Switzerland, almost 60 percent of the population regularly plays video games. This means that video games have become significantly more relevant than the sometimes still prevailing clichéd images of gamers suggest. Dr. Hiloko Kato is a linguist who researches linguistic interaction in digital games and is Chair of the DSI Community Gaming at the University of Zurich. In the video, she shows how science looks at video games today.


 

Whether we are consuming social media posts, videos or journalistic online articles, algorithms determine what content is suggested to us next. How these so-called recommendation systems work is particularly important when it comes to political news, as Prof. Dr. Abraham Bernstein explains. He is a computer scientist, professor at the Institute of Computer Science and Executive Director of the Digital Society Initiative (DSI) at the University of Zurich. In this video, he shows how recommendation systems can support democracy.


 

Technology is new and modern, religion, by contrast, is old and dusty. At least, that's what you might think. In fact, digital technologies and religion are strongly connected. Prof. Dr. Beth Singler is an anthropologist, assistant professor of «Digital Religion(s)» and part of the Digital Society Initiative (DSI) at the University of Zurich – as an Affiliated DSI Professor. In this video, she highlights how digital technology is viewed in a religious way and how religious communities use digital technologies for their purposes.


 

The more we humans work with artificial intelligence (AI) in our day-to-day work, the more pressing the question becomes of who is responsible when mistakes happen. Can an AI be responsible at all? Or is the human always the scapegoat in a team of humans and AI anyway? Dr. Markus Christen, an ethicist and Managing Director of the Digital Society Initiative (DSI) at the University of Zurich, addresses these questions in the video.


 

Every day, we share a lot of data online – both for work and for personal reasons. This data can be used against us by cyber criminals. In this video, Dr. Melanie Knieps explains how they do this and what so-called open source intelligence (OSINT) has to do with it. She is a researcher in cybersecurity at the Digital Society Initiative (DSI) at the University of Zurich and project manager at the Cyber Resilience Network for the Canton of Zurich (CYREN ZH).


 

You may be familiar with this: you have unknown symptoms and want to know what is causing them. Symptom checker apps can provide answers here. This is possible thanks to our personal health data, among other things. In the video, Prof. Dr. Claudia Witt, a physician and epidemiologist, professor at the Faculty of Medicine and Do-Director of the Digital Society Initiative (DSI) at the University of Zurich, explains why this is still a problem today.


 

We have all seen them in the comments sections of news articles or on social media: hate speech, racism, sexism and other forms of denigration. What should you do when you see such a comment? Prof. Dr. Karsten Donnay explains why it is better to respond to a hate comment than to ignore it. He is a political scientist, assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and part of the Digital Society Initiative (DSI) at the University of Zurich – as DSI Professor and Co-Chair of the DSI Community Democracy.


 

From pizza to taxi rides to house cleaning: many services can now be conveniently ordered online and via app. People who work for the platforms offering these services put in a lot of unpaid effort and can never count on a fixed income. Prof. Dr. Karin Schwiter is a labor geographer, professor at the Department of Geography and part of the Digital Society Initiative (DSI) at the University of Zurich – as DSI Professor and Co-Chair of the DSI Community Work. In this video, she explains why so-called platform work is a precarious form of work.


 

Large language models are not only the basis for chatbots like ChatGPT. They can also be used in research. In this video, Prof. Dr. Viktor von Wyl explains how large language models can relieve the burden on study participants in health research and lead to completely new insights. Viktor von Wyl is an epidemiologist, assistant professor of Digital and Mobile Health at the Faculty of Medicine and a member of the Digital Society Initiative (DSI) at the University of Zurich – as DSI Professor.