Hallo, bonjour and welcome!

I am Laura, and the path that brought me to the field of digital ethics is likely as improbable and the same time logical as yours.

I have been in the business of real-time cross-language communication for going on 15 years as a professional conference interpreter. I looked at multilingualism through a cognitive lense when earning my PhD. And I have consulted for policy initiatives for minority languages in the multilingual Swiss system.

From these different perspectives on language and multilingual communication I have learned that

• Words – no matter the language – without authentic communicative intent are mostly noise. The signal lies in how words enable actual connections between people.

• People crave understanding. Making sense of what is going on around us, what we are a part of, what we are excluded from.

• Language is simultaneously under- and overvalued. It is a carrier of meaning, culture, identity, persuasion, but those things cannot be reduced to language.

Sometimes it is hard to tell signal from noise. Sometimes it is difficult to understand what is happening. Overestimating the power of language and underestimating the power of language adds to the confusion.

And all of these things combined make AI solutions so appealing. But I believe that the shortcut they promise is costly. In terms of our cognitive capacity and our agency.

Wanting to better grasp the value of the human element in what we do, understanding where we stand to lose or gain something by automatizing parts of our workflow – and wanting to make better arguments – led me to digital ethics… and to setting sail to earning an MA to upgrade my skills portfolio.