Gry Hasselbalch | On human power and machine logic, and the sovereignty of thought | Episode #88

In this episode of The Only Constant, Lasse Rindom speaks with Gry Hasselbalch - AI ethics researcher, digital rights advocate, and author of Human Power: Seven Traits for the Politics of the AI Machine Age. 

Gry has spent over two decades shaping the European conversation on digitalization, data ethics, and the politics of AI, including contributing to the EU's high-level expert group on AI and co-signing the Cannes Declaration on the sovereignty of human thought. In this wide-ranging conversation, she and Lasse explore what it really means to be human in an age that keeps trying to optimize it away.

Main topics they discuss include:

• The age-old tension between mechanistic order and human complexity - and why the AI machine age is one of history's most aggressive bids to tip the balance
• Henri Bergson's distinction between intellect and intuition, and why AI captures one brilliantly while remaining fundamentally incapable of the other
• The homogenization of language and culture - how AI is colonizing human expression before we've even noticed what we've lost
• The Cannes Declaration on the sovereignty of human thought, and what it means to legally protect the mind from algorithmic manipulation
• EU regulation, digital sovereignty, and the geopolitical asymmetry that threatens to dismantle the very frameworks built to protect fundamental rights

If you've ever felt that something quietly important is slipping away in how we think, write, and relate to each other - this conversation is for you.

Do you want to know more about Gry Hasselbalch

Gry Hasselbalch is a Danish author and scholar specialising in the politics and power dynamics of technology, with a focus on data, AI ethics, and the historical forces shaping technological development. Her work bridges policy, academia, and public engagement, and she is widely recognised for promoting a humanistic approach to technology.

Through two decades, she has contributed to EU and global discussions on digitalisation, AI and data. She was a member of the EU's High-Level Expert Group on AI (2018-2020) which developed the EU's AI ethics guidelines that were transferred into the EU's momentous AI Act.

Gry Hasselbalch holds a PhD in data/AI ethics and power and is the author of several critically acclaimed books including Human Power – Seven Traits for the Politics of the AI Machine Age (2025), Data Ethics of Power (2021), and Data Ethics – The New Competitive Advantage (2016).

She has advised governments and international organisations, spoken at leading global events, and moderated high-level conferences for the European Commission and others. Her expertise is has been sought by major media, including CNN International, Bloomberg, Al Jazeera, Euronews, and Wired.