Future of Everything/Made by Humans/A Superior Spectre
All Things Futuristic
Tim Dunlop + Angela Meyer + Ellen Broad
Queensland Terrace, State Library of Queensland
Science / Science Fiction/Dystopian Future/Speculative
302
#Performances
#About the event
Duration: 60 minutes
We are in the middle of the greatest technological revolution in history. Its epicentre lies in Silicon Valley, but its impacts are felt on all corners of the earth. It could give all of us a better quality of life and new, more cooperative ways of living. Or it could further concentrate the world’s wealth in the hands of a few. This book offers a bold vision for ensuring that we achieve the former. A world that is fairer, less violent and most radical of all, more joyous.
In Future of Everything, Tim Dunlop spells out his ideas for reclaiming common ground systematically, arguing the case for more public ownership of essential assets, more public space, a transparent media system and an education that prepares us for the future, not the past. His vision for improved democracies and societies is practical and realistic, grounded in knowledge of what we are doing well and what we must do better. He argues that we have the policy tools to make it happen – what we need is public and political will.
Artificial Intelligence in fact and fiction. Humans make decisions about the laws and standards, the tools, the ethics in this new world. Who benefits. Who gets hurt. Made by Humans explores our role and responsibilities in automation.
Meyer’s novel, A Superior Spectre, is about our capacity for curiosity, and our dangerous entitlement to it, and reminds us the scariest ghosts aren't those that go bump in the night, but those that are born and create a place for themselves in the human soul.
Chair: Dr Karl Kruszelnicki
Presented by Griffith University and Integrity 20
#Artists
Tim Dunlop
Tim Dunlop is an author and an in-demand public commentator. He teaches new media and journalism and the University of Melbourne. He has been a columnist for the ABC, as well for News Ltd. He writes on the future of work for The Guardian and speaks regularly in public and professional forums around the world on the same topic. His 2015 book, The New Front Page is a seminal text on the digital media revolution and presaged changes still affecting the industry. His 2017 book, the best-selling Why The Future Is Workless, discusses technology and the future of work.
In his new book, The Future of Everything, he does what few are willing to do. He goes beyond mere analysis and offers a comprehensive set of changes that will make the world a better place: fairer, more democratic, less violent, more joyous. It is an audacious agenda for real democratic change that looks at work, wealth, journalism, government, education and the natural world. It argues that we are all in this together and that in order to change things we are going to have to take back control from those who are currently failing us.
Angela Meyer
Angela Meyer’s writing has been widely published, including in Best Australian Stories, Island, The Big Issue, The Australian, The Lifted Brow and Killings. She has previously published a book of flash fiction, Captives (Inkerman & Blunt).
She has worked in bookstores, as a book reviewer, in a whisky bar, and for the past few years has published a range of Australian authors for Echo Publishing, including award-winners and an international number one bestseller.
She grew up in Northern NSW and lives in Melbourne. A Superior Spectre is her debut novel.
Ellen Broad
Ellen Broad is an independent consultant and expert in data sharing, open data and AI ethics. She has worked in technology policy and implementation in global roles, including as Head of Policy for the Open Data Institute, an international organisation headquartered in London and co-founded by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, and Sir Nigel Shadbolt, a leading expert in artificial intelligence. She has provided independent advice on data and digital issues to governments, UN bodies and multinational tech companies. She has testified before committees of the European and Australian parliaments, written articles for New Scientist and The Guardian, and been a guest of ABC Radio National programs Big Ideas and Future Tense.
#Moderator
Dr Karl Kruszelnicki
Dr Karl’s media career spans more than 30 years, talking about Science in newspapers, radio, TV and books — 43 to date. His accolades range from the Ig Nobel Prize from Harvard University for his groundbreaking research into belly button fluff, to being one of Australia’s 100 National Living Treasures. Since 1995, he has been the Julius Sumner Miller Fellow at the University of Sydney.
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