The consequences of AI: fear in the digital age

From industrial robots to ChatGPT, and from driverless cars to military drones: AI is transforming all aspects of our lives, from the changing nature of work, employment and unemployment to the most intimate aspects of personal relationships.

In this lecture, Anthony Elliott focuses on the complex systems of AI – spanning intelligent machines, chatbots, advanced robotics, accelerating automation, big data – and their centrality to new forms of social interaction, organizational life and governance. He argues, provocatively, that today’s modernity has come to mean smartphones, tablets, cloud computing, big data, automated recommendation systems and predictive analytics. This has heralded the arrival of what Elliott terms ‘algorithmic modernity’, an altogether new ‘stage’ in the technological and cultural ordering of modern societies. In this brave new world, human agency is increasingly outsourced to smart machines. We should understand this phenomenon, Elliott argues, in terms of an intensification of opportunity and fear, as AI becomes increasingly enmeshed with fundamental disruption and anxieties about the future.

The seminar will be opened with a welcome address by Marcus Wallenberg, Chair of IVA, and will be moderated by IVA Fellow Fredrik Lagergren.

The seminar is followed by a reception with refreshments, offering an opportunity to continue the discussion.

The seminar will be held in English. It is streamed live, and can be viewed afterwards, on this page.

Anthony Elliott is Bradley Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of South Australia, where he also serves as Dean of External Engagement and Executive Director of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence in Digital Transformation. He holds visiting professorships in Japan and Ireland and is a Fellow of several prestigious academic societies. An internationally acclaimed author, Elliott has written over fifty books translated into 17 languages, including The Culture of AI, Making Sense of AI, Algorithmic Intimacy, and Algorithms of Anxiety. In 2023, he was appointed Member of the Order of Australia for his contributions to education and social science research.