A future with freedom, safety, AI and Big Tech
How do we safeguard democracy while the tech giants concentrate power among themselves?
Nordic Bildung will be hosting this debate at Folkemødet in collaboration with DataEthics. It is on Bornholm on June 11, at 18:00-18:45 in Strandvejens Debattelt, B12, one of the “official” venues. We are one of the Wildcards, and you can find us in the program here: https://programoversigt.folkemoedet.dk/events/2026/33211/en-fri-og-sikker-fremtid-med-ai-og-big-tech
The event will be in Danish, and this is what we’ll be discussing with the audience:
The private individual Elon Musk can turn Starlink on and off as he pleases, and thus decide the war in Ukraine; both Russia and Ukraine use his satellites. How can technological development receive the same political and societal attention as the climate? Our society and its institutions are built around the steam engine and the landline telephone. AI, cryptocurrencies and a number of other digital technologies are tearing the geopolitical, economic and democratic foundation from under our feet. Ownership of the algorithms and thus the money is concentrated in a very few hands, and production, power structures, global geopolitics and much more are being completely reshaped. But it is largely not discussed politically. The environmental and climate debate has gone from “What does it matter to me?” to “How do we do it?” Together with the audience, we will discuss how Denmark and the Danes can achieve responsible development when it comes to AI and geopolitics, as well as the environment.
The team on stage
Astrid Haug
Has worked with social media and digitalization for 20 years. For the last 13 years as a freelancer, she has advised countless companies and organizations on how they can exploit the opportunities in digital tools, from social media to artificial intelligence. This is done with an increasing focus on the responsible use of tech, including making companies more independent of American tech players. Since January 2025, Astrid has “broken up with big tech”, i.e. replaced almost all of her digital services and devices privately and in her company with Danish, European or open source and foundation-owned. Astrid has thus become a case in her own right and has spoken about this in a number of Danish media, including Aftenshowet, Jyllandsposten, etc. Astrid sits on a number of boards, including Maj Invest, Gubra and Symbion. She writes a regular column for Finans and is a regular guest on their podcast Bundlinjen and has published six professional books, including “Unmute your digital leadership”. She is also a member of ATV’s digital council of sages and part of the faculty at Børsen’s board education at CBS on the theme of digitalization. She has previously worked at Berlingske, Christiansborg and the Ministry of Culture.
Pernille Tranberg
Is a journalist who has been employed at Politiken, editor-in-chief at Tænk and development editor-in-chief at Berlingske Media. After a year at the Danish Business Authority in 2013-2014, where she was hired to make privacy a competitive advantage, she resigned and co-founded the European organization DataEthics.eu to raise awareness of the responsible use of technology and has since advocated for and taught data and AI ethics to 7th grade school students, officials in the Ministry of Taxation and leaders in the private business sector. Since 2015, Pernille has maintained lists of alternative tech tools, including at dataethics.eu/tools. She has facilitated a data ethics network for large responsible multinational companies and is the author of seven books – the most relevant being Fake It (2012) about commercial surveillance and how to look after your data (published in four languages) and Data Ethics – the New Competitive Advantage (2016). She is a co-author of the report “Big Tech’s Soft Power” (dataethics.eu/softpower/) from 2023. From 2022-2024 she was appointed to the government’s expert group on tech giants. Read more: https://digital-identitet.dk/da/om/
Lene Rachel Andersen
Full member of the Club of Rome, President of the Copenhagen based philosophical and educational lab Nordic Bildung, and co-founder of the Global Bildung Network.
I am an economist, author, futurist, philosopher and bildung activist. After studying business economy for three years, I worked as a substitute teacher before I studied theology. During my studies, I wrote satire and entertainment for Danish television until I decided to quit theology, become a fulltime writer and focus on technological development, big history, and the future of humanity.
Since 2005, I have written more than 20 books and received two Danish democracy awards: Ebbe Kløvedal-Reich Democracy Baton (2007) and Døssing Prisen, the Danish librarians’ democracy prize (2012).
Among my books are The Nordic Secret (2017; new edition January 2024), Metamodernity (2019), relaunched 2023 as Polymodernity, Bildung (2020), What is Bildung? (2021), and Libertism (2022).