The devil's advisor - or: How students deal with the EU AI Act in a corporate context via "ethical hacking"

12 March 2025

Everyone is talking about AI. In countless companies, this technology is already an integral part of value creation in a wide variety of forms. The EU's AI Act is intended to prevent the harmful consequences of using AI. However, as with all complex regulations, this results in a balancing act for companies between economic efficiency and legal compliance. This in turn always leads to loopholes and grey areas being exploited in such a way that ethical principles no longer apply.

"Ethical Hacking“ and the EU AI Act

Shownotes

In the interdisciplinary course run by Dr Michaela Regnieri and Lucas Memmert, students from all subjects not only learn about the AI Act and ethical perspectives on AI. With the help of the consulting firm iDIGMA, students literally become management consultants over the course of a semester and consciously explore the limits of AI regulation.

The aim is to identify weaknesses in the AI Act for the corporate context using ethical hacking, to develop ideas for strengthening the AI Act and to sensitise students to the complex decision-making processes regarding the use of AI in companies.

In doing so, students develop their own critical attitude and experience directly what the tension between economic efficiency and ethical action means, and that there can always be win-win ways out of the obvious grey areas towards the good.

BreAkIng Bad' thus becomes “Great power grows great responsibility” - and with it the future competence of ethical and economic behaviour.

The interdisciplinary teaching project "BreAkIng Bad: Hacking the AI Act" was successfully carried out in 2023 and 2024. The teaching project was funded by the Digital and Data Literacy in Teaching Lab (DDLitLab for short) and was offered on an interdisciplinary basis in the Studium Generale programme at the University of Hamburg.

Shownotes:

Funding period: 01.04.2023 - 31.03.2024

Funding website: BreAkIng Bad: Hacking the AI Act and in the course catalogue of the UHH, winter semester 23/24: Course description

Webseite of iDIGMA: https://idigma.com/BreakingBad/

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This and other interviews on funded teaching projects at the DDLitLab can be found here.

Concept & production: Julia Pawlowski, Sven Rehder, Simon Steinhauser
Digital and Data Literacy in Teaching Lab, February 2024/25

Spotlight: Data Literacy Teaching Lab

In our series "Spotlight: Data Literacy Teaching Lab", we talk to lecturers who have received funding for their teaching projects from the Digital and Data Literacy in Teaching Lab (DDLitLab for short) at the University of Hamburg.

What were the innovative ideas of the projects? What were the particular didactic and content-related challenges, and the highlights?
And are there perhaps specific tips for other teachers who would also like to set up a new teaching project and are looking for experience reports?

We will clarify this and more in our look at and behind the scenes. Spotlight on!