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“We make the future” – New Year’s lecture has a large fan base

Just in the last few days before the New Year’s Lecture on the topic of “Sherlock Holmes, Watson or Sauron”, numerous registrations arrived at the university: around 200 guests had registered for the lecture by the university’s Vice President, Professor Valentin Plenk. Using numerous film sequences from Her, Wall-E, Colossus, Robot & Frank and several more, he explored the question of how Hollywood sees the role of AI in our future.

Over 200 visitors attended the New Year’s Lecture 2025 at Hof University of Applied Sciences and were thoroughly entertained; Image: Hof University of Applied Sciences;

“The more I talk about technology, the less people listen to me,” said Plenk during the lecture. His aim was therefore to present a “fun technology assessment”.

It is exciting to see what comes out when science fiction authors talk to scientists and then “spin out” the scenarios further. His tendency when selecting the film sequences was to focus more on older films, as the robots were portrayed by people, which makes them appear more human and therefore more authentic. And: “This lowers the production costs and increases the creepy factor for the viewer in a simple way”.

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Valentin Plenk; Image: Hof University of Applied Sciences;

Wall-E depicts a future in which robots completely take care of humans so that they no longer have anything to do. Plenk quoted Manfred Spitzer, neuroscientist and keynote speaker at Hof University of Applied Sciences, several times: “Our intellectual resources will atrophy if we have no activities of our own and hand everything over to the machines – as depicted in the movie Wall-E.”

Visions of the future that are limited to green roofs in cities are a sign that we lack great visions. His final message was nevertheless positive, as he has high hopes for the young people who are being trained at Hof University of Applied Sciences, for example: “We are creating the future with real young people!”

The audience was very impressed by the lecture: “That was pure entertainment,” said one guest, and another:

“I learned a lot again, even though I didn’t go to university, I still feel well looked after and welcome at Hof University of Applied Sciences. I enjoy coming to the events.”

Visitor testimonial

Anne-Christine Habbel

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