In recent years, technology has become increasingly intertwined with media and politics. For instance, Jeff Bezos, in addition to being the founder of Amazon, is also the owner of The Washington Post, a newspaper that made headlines with the Watergate scandal and at the time presented itself as a beacon of democracy. Elon Musk was shamelessly involved in Trump’s election campaign and is said to have contributed to a more polarized online climate, which made Trump’s reelection possible.

Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal and the data firm Palantir, collaborates with the now-infamous ICE immigration agency. This led to violent protests in the U.S. and the deaths of two protesters. And Sam Altman of OpenAI recently secured a contract with the Pentagon.

This happened on the same day that Trump terminated the partnership with Anthropic, which refused to acquiesce to mass surveillance of American citizens and the use of their technology in the development of autonomous weapons.

Previously, there were rumors that the Anthropic bot Claude had been used by the U.S. military in the large-scale attacks on Iran that also claimed the life of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Claude reportedly shortens the “kill chain”—that is, the process from target identification through legal approval to the execution of the attack. Striking faster, with ever-less human intervention. How healthy is that evolution?

In this keynote, we explore the intertwining of technology and politics, the implications of these powerful networks, and the potential consequences for our democracies. What does this mean for the future of politics in a world where tech companies increasingly determine what we see, hear, and believe?