Sydney Writers Festival: Livestream and Local - Dark Technologies

Machines lead the charge on today's battlefields, but what does this mean for the people caught in the crossfire?

Learn from journalist Antony Loewenstein, whose Walkley Award-winning investigation, The Palestine Laboriatory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation around the World, uncovered the widespread commercialisation and global deployment of Israeli weaponry tested in Palestinian territories. Antony is joined by AI expert Toby Walsh, whose new book, Faking It! Artificial Intelligence in A Human World, explores how AI impersonates human intelligence.

Join them in this vital conversation with host Micahel Richardson about the intersection of technology, conflict, occupation and surveillance.

Supported by UNSW Sydney.

About the authors:

Antony Loewenstein (pictured left)

Antony Loewenstein is an independent journalist, best-selling author, filmmaker and co-founder of Declassified Australia. He's written for The Guardian, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books and many others. His books include Pills, Powder and Smoke, Disaster Capitalism and My Israel Question. His documentary films include Disaster Capitalism and the Al Jazeera English films West Africa's Opioid Crisis and Under the Cover of Covid. He was based in East Jerusalem 2016–2020.

Toby Walsh (pictured right)

Toby Walsh is Chief Scientist of UNSW.AI, University of NSW's new AI Institute. He is a strong advocate for limits to ensure AI is used to improve our lives, having spoken at the UN and to heads of state, parliamentary bodies, company boards and many others on this topic. This advocacy has led to him being "banned indefinitely" from Russia. He is a Fellow of the Australia Academy of Science and was named on the international "Who's Who in AI" list of influencers. He has written four books on AI for a general audience, the most recent is Faking It! Artificial Intelligence in A Human World.

Hosted by Michael Richardson

Michael Richardson is a writer, researcher and teacher living and working on Gadigal and Bidjigal country. An Associate Professor at UNSW Sydney and an Associate Investigator with ADM+S, his research examines how technology, power and culture shape knowledge in war, security and surveillance. His latest book is Nonhuman Witnessing: War, Climate, and Data After the End of the World.