Lse: Public Lectures And Events

Contributor(s): Reid Hoffman | Artificial Intelligence is not only a generational technology, but also a general purpose technology—one that has outsized potential to transform societies and economies globally. How should we use AI to not only better understand the world, but organise, develop, and elevate it?

Contributor(s): Professor Mirca Madianou | In this talk based on her new book, Mirca Madianou will argue that digital innovations such as biometrics and chatbots engender new forms of violence and entrench power asymmetries between the global south and north. Drawing on ten years of research on the uses of digital technologies in humanitarian operations, Madianou will unearth the colonial power relations which shape ‘technology for good’ initiatives. The notion of technocolonialism captures how the convergence of digital infrastructures with humanitarian bureaucracy, state power and market forces reinvigorates and reshapes colonial legacies. Technocolonialism shifts the attention to the constitutive role that digital infrastructures, data and AI play in accentuating inequities between aid providers and people in need.

Contributor(s): Dr Callum Cant, Dr James Muldoon, Professor Kirsten Sehnbruch | Conversations around AI tend to focus on the future dangers, but what about the damage AI is inflicting on people right now? AI promises to transform everything, from work to transport to war, and to solve our problems with total ease. But hidden beneath this smooth surface lies the grim reality of a precarious global workforce of millions that labour under often appalling conditions to make AI possible. Feeding the Machine presents an urgent investigation of the intricate network of organisations that maintain this exploitative system, revealing the untold truth of AI. Authors Callum Cant and James Muldoon will be joined by Kirsten Sehnbruch to discuss the impact of AI on global inequalities, and what we need to do, individually and collectively, to fight for a more just digital future.

Contributor(s): Professor Jonathan Birch | Can octopuses feel pain and pleasure? What about crabs, shrimps, insects or spiders? How do we tell whether a person unresponsive after severe brain injury might be suffering? When does a fetus in the womb start to have conscious experiences? Could there even be rudimentary feelings in miniature models of the human brain, grown from human stem cells? And what about AI? These are questions about the "edge of sentience", and they are subject to enormous, disorienting uncertainty. The stakes are immense, and neglecting the risks can have terrible costs. We need to err on the side of caution in these cases, yet it’s often far from clear what ‘erring on the side of caution’ should mean in practice. When are we going too far? When are we not doing enough? Birch's new book, The Edge of Sentience: Risk and Precaution in Humans, Other Animals, and AI, constructs a precautionary framework designed to help us reach ethically sound, evidence-based decisions despite our uncertain

Contributor(s): Professor J. McKenzie Alexander, Dr Ilka Gleibs, Professor Alan Manning | Across the world, populist agendas on both the left and right threaten to undermine fundamental principles that underpin liberal democracies, so that what were previously seen as virtues of the ‘Open Society’ are now, by many people, seen as vices, dangers, or threats. As global citizens, we are implicated by a range of contemporary social questions informed by the Open Society; from the free movement of people to the erosion of privacy, no-platforming and the increased political and social polarisation fuelled by social media. Expanding on Karl Popper’s thinking nearly 80 years since the original publication of his spirited philosophical defence of the Open Society, J. McKenzie Alexander’s new book, The Open Society As An Enemy, argues that a new defence is urgently needed now, in the decades since the end of the Cold War. The Open Society as an Enemy interrogates four interconnected aspects of the Open Society: cosmopo

Contributor(s): Professor Sonia Livingstone | Public anxiety about children’s digital lives and wellbeing is reaching a fever pitch, marking a notable turnaround from the decades-long efforts to ensure children are fully digitally included, literate and empowered. While arguments rage over what’s wrong with ‘screen time,’ ‘online harms,’ and data-driven forms of exploitation, this lecture will examine how a children’s rights lens can help steer an evidence-based path towards better digital futures for children.

Contributor(s): Professor Deborah James, Professor Claire Mercer, Professor Susan Parnell, Professor Ola Uduku | African cities are under construction. Beyond the urban redevelopment schemes and large-scale infrastructure projects reconfiguring central city skylines, urban residents are putting their resources into finding land and building homes on city edges. Claire Mercer’s research shows how the ‘suburban frontier’ has become the place where Africa’s middle classes are shaped.

Contributor(s): Dr George Papaconstantinou, Professor Jean Pisani-Ferry, Professor Andrés Velasco | This event marks the launch of New World, New Rules by George Papaconstantinou and Jean Pisani-Ferry, in which two of European policymakers and analysts outline a new agenda for global governance. In the book, they examine governance practices across several key policy areas – climate, health, trade and competition, banking and finance, taxation, migration and the digital economy – and consider what works and what doesn't, and why. The global governance solutions they put forward are ambitious but pragmatic. They require complexity, flexibility and compromise. Attributes that global governments are demonstrably short of, but today's global crises urgently demand.

Contributor(s): Professor Patrick Bolton | Patrick Bolton will be talking on the topic of Elements of a Theory of the Responsible Firm. The lecture will begin with a short review of economic theories of the firm, pointing out that although all the economic theories see the firm as an institutional response to improve on market and contractual inefficiencies, they ignore the problem of the economic responsibility of firms in a world of market inefficiencies, externalities, and government failures. Professor Bolton will then turn to a discussion of the meaning of economic responsibility, its relevance, and practical implications for firms, by drawing on some key readings from management, law, and philosophy.

Contributor(s): Dr Federica Fragapane, Dr Marta Foresti, Dr Francesca Panero | The talk will explore the design process and motivations behind data visualization projects, characterized by different usage contexts, responding to various needs, and with differing levels of experimentation. It will focus on the visual languages used to shape information and stories and delve into how visual words in data visualizations can be alive and sometimes political.

Contributor(s): Dr Tom Scott-Smith, Nick Henderson, Dr Myfanwy James | Abandoned airports. Shipping containers. Squatted hotels. These are just three of the many unusual places that have housed refugees in the past decade. The story of international migration is often told through personal odysseys and dangerous journeys, but when people arrive at their destinations a more mundane task begins: refugees need a place to stay. Governments and charities have adopted a range of strategies in response to this need. Some have sequestered refugees in massive camps of glinting metal. Others have hosted them in renovated office blocks and disused warehouses. They often end up in prefabricated shelters flown in from abroad.

Contributor(s): Professor Paul Dolan, Dr Gillian Tett | Nobel prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman was the founder of modern behavioural science and behavioural economics. His close friends and colleagues Gillian Tett, Paul Dolan and Richard Layard will come together to discuss his research and the scale of his influence on society.

Contributor(s): Professor Andrea Cornwall, Professor Naomi Hossain, Professor Naila Kabeer, Dr Erin Lentz | 30 years ago, Naila Kabeer published Reversed Realities: Gender Hierarchies in Development Thought, which became a landmark study in the scholarship on gender and development. It is widely regarded as a (if not the) key text in the field of Feminist Development Studies. It provided path-breaking perspectives on the politics of development knowledge production, specifically about how excluding feminist knowledge shaped development practice and unequal outcomes. Several leading thinkers will join us in the fields of feminist economics and development studies to reflect on the legacies of this groundbreaking text and what has changed 30 years on.

Contributor(s): Professor Tarun Khaitan, Professor Lea Ypi | Liberal constitutional theory rests on a fundamental division between duty-bearing public institutions and the rights-wielding private persons. This inaugural lecture will explore the implications of this division on the constitutional regulation of news and social media corporations. It will argue that constitutional theory needs to acknowledge the essentially public purpose of news media corporations. even when privately owned. It will further argue that the liberal free speech framework (even in its ‘positive’, pluralism-seeking, conception) cannot justify regulation of echo chambers and polarising content on social media. Democratic constitutions, therefore, need to explicitly recognise truth (or ‘verity’) as an independent fundamental constitutional value. The key implications for constitutional regulation that would follow from this recognition will be explored.

Contributor(s): Professor Bruce J. Caldwell | 2024 marks the 50th anniversary of the Nobel Prize won by liberal political economist F.A. Hayek. This lecture will review some of Hayek’s key ideas and especially his contributions to the methodology of the social sciences. It will feature Bruce Caldwell, a leading historian of economic thought, author of a recently released book Hayek: A Life, 1899–1950. 

Contributor(s): Kate Aronoff, Stephen Castle, Professor Inderjeet Parmar, Richard Seymour | What does the outcome of the US presidential election mean for democrats and progressives? What is its significance both in the United States and around the world?

Contributor(s): Dr Helen Sharman, Dr Jill Stuart, Dr Dimitrios Stroikos | What kind of possibilities does this new space age bring—and what dangers should we be worried about? Can any nation seize possession of the moon? Could it be mined? Is there junk in space? And whatever happened to that flag that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planted on the moon fifty five years ago? To find out more, Maayan Arad speaks to Dr Helen Sharman, the first British astronaut in space who flew aboard the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz TM-12 in 1991. He also talks to Dr Jill Stuart, an expert in the politics, ethics and law of outer space exploration and exploitation and Visiting Fellow in LSE’s Department of Government, and Dr Dimitrios Stroikos, LSE Fellow in the Department of International Relations and Head of the Space Policy Programme at LSE IDEAS.   Contributors Dr Helen Sharman, first British astronaut Dr Jill Stuart, Visiting Fellow at LSE’s Department of Government Dr Dimitrios Stroikos, LSE Fellow in the Department of Inter

Contributor(s): Ellie Benton, Meghan Roach, Alicia Walker | An estimated 20,000 young people in London were experiencing homelessness, or were at risk of homelessness, in 2022/23. This represents a 10% increase compared to 2021/22, with a similar trend seen nationally. Crucially, estimates suggest that 48% of all young people experiencing homelessness do not contact their local authority, or face barriers in doing so. The event will explore why youth homelessness in London has increased; the special needs of young people experiencing homelessness; the challenges for London’s local authorities and voluntary organisations in addressing these issues; and proposals for helping solve the problem of youth homelessness.

Contributor(s): Professor Mukulika Banerjee, Keith Magee, Joseph C Sternberg | Will the 2024 election mark a turning point in American democracy and in the country’s role in the world? Leading experts discuss the 2024 US election and its domestic and international implications.

Contributor(s): Professor Helen Margetts, Professor Andrew Murray, Dr Dorottya Sallai, Chloe Smith | In a world increasingly shaped by digital transformation, AI and data science present new opportunities to change policymaking in nearly all areas of policy. Yet the capabilities of these emerging technologies are still unfolding and need to be better understood, both in terms of their benefits and their limitations. This event marks the publication of the most recent issue of the LSE Public Policy Review, which brings together contributions from a range of disciplines - from philosophy to statistics, government and law - to reflect together on future directions, applications, and consequences of the use of AI in public policies. Join our panellists as they discuss how emerging technologies can transform evidence-based policy development through their analytical capabilities, predictive powers, and real-time monitoring, while also bringing questions around regulation, transparency, accountability and ethics to