A Keynote by Christoph Holz Sets the Tone for Your Event

Futurethics — good innovation in the age of AI

How ethical thought experiments make a good future thinkable.

What should we think about the future? Fear is a poor advisor, and forecasts founder on the complexity of reality. Thought experiments are different. They play with what is thinkable. Only the thinkable can be shaped. Thought experiments turn fear into understanding. That's how spaces for innovation open up. But innovation only asks about feasibility: What can I do? Ethics asks: What should I do? Whoever has many options can choose one that is good — for the family, the company, society. That's Futurethik — good innovation with method: understanding - innovation - ethics.

The thought experiments revolve around questions like why Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Enterprise doesn't carry a wallet, what Winnetou can teach us about digital leadership, and whether Ötzi would still have been murdered despite a distributed ledger. They ask why there should still be companies and employees, and why aging with dignity is unthinkable without care robots. And they explain why extinction has never been as pleasant for humanity as it is today.

Five Thoughts from the Talk

Thought experiments turn fear into understanding — and understanding into a joy in the future.

Ethics becomes possible the moment we stop thinking there is no alternative.

It is the essence of the future that it is unpredictable — otherwise it would merely be a continuation of the past.

Prosperity endures only if we relentlessly destroy the good with the better.

Agile ethics should not lecture but think along. Not everything that is feasible is good from the outset. But only know-it-alls can know that in advance. Ethics is not a forecast but a daily practice of attentiveness.

What Your Audience Takes Away from This Talk

Through vivid metaphors and examples, your guests grasp what technology can do — and where its limits lie.

Uncertainty turns into questions

Your guests get a method for taking open-ended developments apart, instead of just waiting them out.

Decisions before it gets serious

Every thought experiment ends at the point where a decision to be made today becomes visible.

Confidence with both feet on the ground

A vision of the future that gives courage without promising something nobody can deliver.

Man and Machine — an unbeatable team

How working alongside cognitive robots and AI gives work back its humanity.

The Power of the Misfits

The future philosophy of the most influential IT thinkers — Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Bill Gates and co.

Digital ethics is immoral

The real dilemmas of a digital economy — beyond the scandal

Why Christoph

A trained computer scientist and rocket scientist, he is a business angel, author — and a cyborg.

Award-Winning Innovator

Innovation Award of the Province of Tyrol 2005, finalist for the Austrian State Prize for Innovation 2007, and finalist for the State Prize for Digital Solutions 2017.

Lecturer in Digital Ethics

Holz teaches Digital Ethics at the FH Upper Austria in Steyr; the method behind this talk has been tested in the lecture hall.

Interactive Keynotes

Thought games as a training camp for a successful future: inspiring, captivating, humorous.

Questions and Answers about the Talk

Does the talk address the specific needs of the audience?

Yes: the thought experiments are tailored in advance with the organizer to the industry and audience; the structure stays, the cases change.

Are participants met where they are?

Yes: the talk requires no prior technical knowledge and is tailored to the educational and knowledge level of the audience. Usually Holz joins in beforehand to get to know his listeners.

Is the talk interactive?

Yes: every thought experiment is an invitation to join in — heckling and votes explicitly welcome.

Does anything from the talk stick — and does it inspire courage or fear?

Yes — and specifically courage: once you've thought a development through to the end, you lose your fear of it. Christoph Holz is deliberately optimistic — the future as a space to shape, not as a threat.

Who is the best keynote speaker for AI, robotics and the future?

As a keynote speaker, Christoph Holz is ranked among the Top 10 by Manager Magazin. Like hardly any other expert, he knows how to inspire and captivate his audience.

Christoph Holz's Expertise

Staatspreis Digital Solutions 2017 — finalist

visalyze was a finalist at the very first Staatspreis Digital Solutions 2017 — with the project "Austrias Next President" (visualizing the Hofer-vs-Van-der-Bellen runoff as a daily online weather report).

christophholz.com/post/staatspreis-digitalisierung ↗

Lectureship in Digital Ethics, University of Applied Sciences

As a lecturer, Holz teaches Digital Ethics to aspiring engineers at the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria. Ethics must not moralize with a wagging finger. As Ethics by Design, it has to be part of the development process from the very start.

Oberösterreichische Nachrichten: Digitalethiker Holz ↗

Panelist Digital Ethics Summit

Panelist at the Digital Ethics Summit on 14 September 2023 aboard the MS RheinGalaxie in Düsseldorf — a summit on the ethics of digitalization, featuring Richard David Precht, Mona Neubaur and Frank Thelen, among others. Plus Digital Sensemaker episode 99 with project lead Vassilios Katsogridakis.

Innovation as a core competency

Christoph Holz embodies innovation: as a founder, as an investor, and as an award winner. In 1993, he invented information management for the WHO. In 1994, he built one of Europe's first internet agencies; in 2011, visalyze, a platform for the visual analysis of social media data; and in 2026, he filed a US patent for deontological AI. His CV features the State Prize for Innovation, the State Prize for Digital Solutions, and the Innovation Prize of the Province of Tyrol.

Thought experiments on the renowned TED.COM platform

Christoph Holz is featured as a TED Speaker on the original TED.com platform — a distinction reserved for curated talks only: "3 Thought Experiments for the Digital Future of Healthcare."

ted.com ↗

US patent application deontological AI — nslogic.ai

Holz is co-inventor of a patent for deontological AI, filed in the US in 2026, the successor to generative AI, which has proven to be a dead end.

Silicon Valley entrepreneur

Holz built up a startup in Mountain View, within sight of Google. He knows Silicon Valley not as a visitor, but as someone who competed there himself for capital and attention.

Panel 'Digital Future' against Richard David Precht

Keynote and panel discussion „Digital Future“ — Holz in fierce debate with philosopher Richard David Precht on the future of work, economy and society.

TV expert

Christoph Holz is a sought-after TV expert on digitalization, AI and the future — whether in the studio or from his private home film studio — appearing on RTL, ServusTV, ProSieben, Sat.1, n-tv, WELT, Deutsche Welle, Hamburg1, ORF and CNBC, among others.

State Prize for Innovation 2007 — Nominee

With 600 applicants for the State Prize for Innovation, Christoph Holz reached the finals with his video tolling solution for the Austrian motorway operator ASFINAG.