Bridging the Digital Divide

April 9th, 2020

In March 2020, CSIRO Postdoctoral Fellow (Responsible Innovation in Robotics and AI), David Douglas, was invited to join an engaging panel of speakers as part of Something Digital’s Night Nomads series. The topic of the night focused on the challenges and opportunities posed by the disintegration of the digital/physical divide.

David Douglas and Shelley Rodriguez

An image of Night Nomad's Bridging the Digital Divide panellists in discussion with the audience taken from a the venue balcony with audience backs to camera and panellists in the foreground.

Night Nomad’s Bridging the Digital Divide’s panellists, Benjamin Richards (Executive Producer, Apothecary Films), Fiona Kerr (Founder & CEO, The NeuroTech Institute), David Douglas (CSIRO Post Doctoral Fellow in Responsible Innovation in Robotics and AI) and Dimity Dornan (Founder & Executive Director, Hear and Say/Bionics Queensland’s Executive Director and Founder) in animated discussion with audience members.

In March 2020, CSIRO Postdoctoral Fellow (Responsible Innovation in Robotics and AI), David Douglas, was invited to join an engaging panel of speakers as part of Something Digital’s Night Nomads series. The topic of the night focused on the challenges and opportunities posed by the disintegration of the digital/physical divide.

Ben Johnston (CEO, Josephmark) moderated a lively debate drawing on the diverse perspectives and knowledge of an expert panel including Dimity Dornan (Founder & Executive Director, Hear and Say/Bionics Queensland’s Executive Director and Founder), Fiona Kerr (Founder & CEO, The NeuroTech Institute), Benjamin Richards (Executive Producer, Apothecary Films) and CSIRO’s own David Douglas. The panel and audience discussions were animated and wide-ranging, touching on subjects from transhumanism, to virtual and augmented reality, to the Internet of Things (IoT).

Setting the scene for the night’s discussions, panellists considered a range of real-time technical innovations already bridging the digital/physical divide. But although it seems the future is already here, we’re not too sure we’re ready for it!

Concerns about the potential of technological determinism, driven by mass scalability and profit objectives, to see innovation such as AI allowed to develop along trajectories unfettered by social conscience, highlighted a strong desire for ethics to play a more active role in guiding human-centred approaches to technology development.

Indeed, the challenge posed by the audience was that our future may well be shaped by how we think about innovation and its role in society, and how disruptive technologies and its influences are depicted in popular culture.

So how does society ensure that the future we find is the one we all want? Do we allow technology to plot its own path or should we stop and consider more closely the ‘human-centric’ questions that underpin our need for such technology and act accordingly. How, for example, can technology assist society to find the answers to these questions so that all benefit?

According to David, “Rather than abdicate responsibility to technology for its own trajectory, it’s important that we all recognise our own roles as creators and users of technology in influencing how it develops into the future.”

For more information about Night Nomad’s Bridging the Digital Divide event can be found at: Something Digital Brisbane Night Nomads

CSIRO is an official sponsor of the Something Digital Festival 2020.