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Dear guests,
I would like to begin with a little thought experiment. Let’s imagine we are in the year 2004. The European Union has just grown by ten new member states. George W. Bush has been re-elected as President of the United States. And millions of people have just watched the final episode of Friends on flow TV. Which back then was just called TV.
But something else happened that year – something almost invisible. A Harvard student launched a new website and called it Facebook. Most people did not really pay attention to this back in 2004.
But imagine if we had.
Imagine if, at that early moment, someone had seriously considered the consequences that platforms like Facebook would have on our democracies, our mental health, our public debate, our young people and our social relations.
And imagine if we had not only reflected on these consequences, but also acted on them and regulated social media platforms with human values in mind.
I believe that if we had done so, many things would look very different today.
And I also believe that Europe is uniquely positioned to be a continent that makes sure that human values lead the way.
Essential questions
Around the world, we see very different approaches to technology, innovation and societal development.
In the United States, the dominant driver is often commercial: How do we get people to buy more? How fast can we scale? How can we capture the largest possible market? There is enormous creativity, but also an absence of restraint.
In China, the orientation is different, but equally clear: Win the global race. Use technology to gain strategic advantage. Use data to strengthen the state. Success is defined by control and speed.
And then, there is Europe.
Europe is not naive. We know that innovation fuels prosperity. We know that technology is essential. And we also want economic success – of course we do. But we also insist on asking a different set of questions:
- What does this mean for people?
- For democracy?
- For our social cohesion, our rights, our well-being?
- What kind of society do we want innovation to serve?
These questions define us. They make us who we are.
When transformative technologies arrive – like artificial intelligence is arriving now – we need someone to ask: Where does this leave the human being?
What happens to dignity, autonomy, creativity?
We also need someone to ask: Where does this leave our society?
How does it affect our democracies? Our power structures? Our public sphere?
These are more than abstract questions. They are the foundation of responsible innovation. And they are precisely the questions that the arts, humanities and social sciences are uniquely equipped to explore.
This is why your work matters so much right in this moment in time. It is at the heart of Europe itself.
It is important to say too, that Europe’s values-driven approach is not a disadvantage in the global competition.
I believe the opposite – that it is a competitive advantage.
Because when Europe looks at innovation, we take a long-term, holistic and ethical perspective. We care about the hard metrics like productivity, growth, jobs. But we also care about the soft ones like well-being, fairness, trust, social cohesion.
This broader lens is sometimes portrayed as a burden – a barrier to rapid development. But in the long run, it makes us stronger.
Societies built on trust are more resilient. Technologies that respect human dignity are more sustainable. Systems designed with ethics at the core are less likely to break, backfire, or need to be rebuilt later.
Values give Europe direction. They give us meaning. And ultimately, they give us legitimacy.
We should not – and we will not – enter the global innovation race merely to win. We are entering it to shape the future according to the values we believe in. It is not just about competing and winning. It is about remembering why we are in the race to begin with.
This is Europe’s unique contribution. And it is one that the world needs.
We know what happens when we fail to ask these questions early enough.
I talked earlier about the emergence of social media. And it goes for smartphones too. These are brilliant inventions, full of promise. Tools for connection, communication, empowerment.
But we did not understand how these platforms and tools would reshape attention, identity and community. And how vulnerable they would make us to manipulation, polarisation and misinformation.
And I do not say this to point fingers, but to remind us that this is not a mistake we can afford to make again.
As we stand at the threshold of a new digital revolution – powered by AI, bio-tech, pervasive data systems – we need the lessons from last time.
This time, we cannot afford to treat ethics as optional or regulation as an inconvenience.
Not an afterthought
This means protecting what makes us human. Our autonomy, creativity, freedom and dignity.
In a world where algorithms, data and automated decisions increasingly shape our choices and opportunities.
It means ensuring that the green transition does not become a burden, but a source of purpose and change. Climate solutions that ignore human behaviour, culture and inequality will simply not work.
It means strengthening Europe’s democratic model at a time when populism and global instability threaten its foundations. Innovation is here to serve democracy, not undermine it.
And it means acknowledging that the major challenges of our time are not only technical problems. They are deeply social, ethical, cultural and political.
Which means they cannot be solved without the disciplines represented in this room.
The humanities and social sciences are indispensable to Europe’s future.
They are not an after-thought. They are not optional. They are not the soft addition to the ‘real’ work of science and engineering.
They are the disciplines that help us understand meaning, identity, behaviour, ethics, institutions, culture, belief, trust.
Basically, all the forces that ultimately determine whether innovation succeeds or fails in the real world.
In Denmark, we are fortunate to have strong research environments in these areas. Danish scholars are among the most successful in Europe in securing funding for these fields.
And programmes such as CAISA show the power of genuine interdisciplinary collaboration where humanistic insight and social-scientific analysis shape the development of AI, rather than being an add-on at the end.
Sometimes the things we cannot measure are exactly what society needs most.
Back in 2004, we stood on the edge of a transformation we barely noticed. We did not yet see how deeply it would reshape our societies.
We cannot change that moment. But we can learn from it.
This time, we see the horizon more clearly. This time, we know that human values cannot wait until later.
This time, we have the knowledge sitting in this very room to guide us – the humanities, the social sciences, the arts. The critical thinkers.
If Europe chooses to lead with its values, innovation can strengthen democracy and keep the human front and centre.
I believe this is our task. This is our opportunity.
Thank you.