RSA Events

Are Digital Technologies Making Politics Impossible?

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This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 13th July 2017

In May this year, James Williams, a former Google employee and doctoral candidate researching design ethics at Oxford University, won the inaugural US$100,000 Nine Dots Prize.

James’ winning piece argued that digital technologies privilege our impulses over our intentions, and are gradually diminishing our ability to engage with the issues we most care about. In this event – his first public event since winning the prize - he will cover:

  • How the ‘distractions’ produced by digital technologies are much more profound than minor ‘annoyances’
  • How so-called ‘persuasive’ design is undermining the human will and ‘militating against the possibility of all forms of self-determination’
  • How beginning to ‘assert and defend our freedom of attention’ is an urgent moral and political task
    • The Nine Dots Prize is supported by Cambridge University Press and the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), both departments of the University of Cambridge.

    Speakers:

    James Williams, Nine Dots Prize winner and recipient of Google’s Founders’ Award
    Jonathan Rowson, Co-founder and Director, Perspectiva

    Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/07/are-digital-technologies-making-politics-impossible

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