As generative AI systems increasingly produce visions of the future—often without clear authorship or accountability—they raise urgent ethical questions that go beyond traditional frameworks. What does it mean when machines “imagine” on our behalf? What ethical obligations emerge when AI-generated images shape foresight, policy, and public imagination?

In this talk, Alina Solotarov draws from Futures Studies, Information Ethics, and real-world case studies of AI-generated images of the future (AIGIFs) to argue for a radical rethinking of ethical frameworks. Moving beyond compliance and control narratives, she introduces the concept of ethical co-imagination—an approach that integrates transparency, representational justice, and the epistemic integrity of visual foresight.

Drawing on her research at Fraunhofer ISI and her award-winning Master’s thesis at Freie Universität Berlin, Alina offers a compelling synthesis of theory and practice. She examines how current frameworks—whether utilitarian, deontological, or regulatory—fail to account for the ontological and semantic ambiguities of machine-generated futures.

This session will equip thought leaders, technologists, and policymakers with fresh tools to evaluate and govern generative AI—not only in terms of harm reduction, but also in terms of who gets to imagine, what is left out, and how we build futures worth living in.