Situation und Konstellation

In the AI Story

The book's title refers to the distinction between a situation (a set of circumstances requiring judgment and response) and a constellation (a pre-structured arrangement that determines response without requiring judgment). Rosa argues that algorithmic systems systematically transform situations into constellations — they replace the domain in which the person must exercise judgment with a domain in which the person executes pre-determined patterns. The Thermomix transforms the cooking situation into a cooking constellation. The GPS transforms the navigation situation into a navigation constellation. The AI coding assistant transforms the programming situation into a programming constellation. In each case, the person who encounters the constellation exercises less judgment than the person who encountered the situation did.

The book's empirical engagement is more extensive than Rosa's earlier work. Case studies include the Thermomix (cooking), GPS navigation, recommendation algorithms, AI coding assistants, AI writing tools, and algorithmic management systems. Each case is analyzed through the same structural framework: identify the activity before algorithmic transformation, specify the Spielraum it contained, trace how the algorithmic deployment eliminates the Spielraum, and assess what the elimination costs the person performing the activity. The aggregate analysis produces a diagnostic instrument that can be applied to any proposed algorithmic deployment, asking in advance what Spielraum it will preserve and what it will eliminate.

The book's prescriptive argument extends earlier work by specifying what resonance-sensitive institutional design would look like in the age of AI. The principles include preservation of Spielraum (designing systems that maintain rather than eliminate the space for human judgment), protection of horizontal resonance (building mandatory human collaboration into AI-augmented workflows), cultivation of vertical resonance (institutional practices that create encounters with genuine difficulty and uncontrollability), and collective coordination (recognition that individual resistance to the acceleration trap is structurally inadequate and must be supplemented by institutional agreements that slow the belt for everyone simultaneously).

The book's reception has been substantial in the German-speaking world, where it has generated sustained debate among sociologists, philosophers of technology, and policymakers. The English translation is scheduled for 2026, and the framework has already begun to influence policy debates at the European level, particularly in connection with the EU AI Act and subsequent regulatory initiatives. The Rosa volume on AI — the book to which this entry belongs — represents one of the earliest extended applications of Situation und Konstellation's framework to an English-language audience.

Origin

Rosa developed the book from a series of lectures and seminars across 2023–2024, partly in response to the AI transition of 2025 and partly in response to his own engagement with the Max Weber Kolleg's research program on algorithmic governance. The book represents the synthesis of a decade of work on the implications of his earlier framework for the specific challenges posed by algorithmic systems.

Key Ideas

Situation vs. constellation. The central distinction: situations require judgment, constellations eliminate the need for judgment.

Spielraum as operational concept. The space for human judgment is the specific thing that algorithmic systems tend to eliminate.

Thermomix as template. The small case illuminates the structural logic of algorithmic systems across every domain.

Case-study method. Empirical engagement with specific technologies, each analyzed through the same structural framework.

Prescriptive extension. Earlier diagnostic work extended into specific principles for resonance-sensitive institutional design in the age of AI.