The War on Cash

Brett Scott is a journalist, campaigner and former derivatives broker. He is the author of The Heretic’s Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money (Pluto Press: 2013), which helps non-expert readers to explore the financial system, and to think about how it could be designed differently. He has worked with a variety of groups on issues related to the financial sector. This includes working on tax justice with Action Aid UK, considering the impact of offshore financial centres, and working on food markets with the World Development Movement, considering the impact of financial players in commodity derivatives markets. He was on the original team of the UK ethical banking reform campaign MoveYourMoney, which advocates for greater banking diversity, transparency and responsible investment. He’s collaborating with groups like Berlin-based Open Oil on building open data models for oil sector transparency, whilst working with student campaigners on the ethical policies of university investment. He also writes on financial campaigns, alternative finance and open source hacker culture for publications like The Guardian, New Scientist, Wired Magazine, Aeon and CNN.com, and provides commentary on financial reform and cryptocurrencies on media channels such as BBC and Arte. He is a Fellow of the ICAEW/WWF Finance Innovation Lab, which brings together practitioners interested in sustainable finance, monetary reform, and peer-to-peer finance. He is very interested in popular education around financial markets, and frequently runs workshops at festivals and other events, as well as helping to facilitate a course on power and design at the Camberwell College of Arts London. To read more, see his blog www.suitpossum.blogspot.com, and visit his Twitter profile @suitpossum.

Plotting the Future

Led by the UCD Humanities Institute, the UCD Institute for Discovery and the UCD Geary Institute for Public Policy, ‘Plotting the Future’ is a public lecture series and forum for debate that explores the urgent question of what it means to be human in the age of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics.

AI, robotics, autonomous vehicles, drones, 3-D printing, nanotechnology, and biotechnology are revolutionising society. These new technologies are already blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological worlds, raising ethical, social and legal concerns. While some commentators celebrate the opportunities of the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution, others foreground the potentially uncontrollable ramifications of what is arguably an unprecedented transformation of the human world.

Our experts and guest lecturers will discuss the following questions:

• What are the socio-political, economic and cultural challenges and opportunities of the second machine age?
• How will it transform the world of work?
• To what extent will our self-perception as human beings change?
• How can we safeguard the very notion of self-governance, given the increasing dependence on AI and robotics?
• Can robotics law protect us from uncontrolled advances in these domains?

Join us as we discuss what the future may look like in thirty years.