Modern society was built on the idea that educated and empowered human beings are the source of progress and development. But what happens when computers are becoming increasingly intelligent and powerful? Power and knowledge seem to increasingly reside in networks beyond individual human understanding and control. Does this threaten the ability of individuals to shape society for the better? Does the answer lie in embracing ‘dataism’ to save the humans species? This panel will discuss the limits of Artificial Intelligence, big data, the future role of humans, and tomorrow’s governance of societies. These issues converge on the existential question “What is the role of free will in a changing world?”
Democracy is the fundamental characteristic of Western nations, as well as a soft-power asset. As such, free and fair elections are a core part of the practice of democracy. However, recent cases have shown democratic nations to be vulnerable to hostile objectives.
The principles of journalistic freedom and free speech can be exploited to undermine the very values they defend. Moreover well-established regulations do not deter creative actors in their attempts to break the rules. Audiences are now targeted with methods that have previously been used only within the military, which raises ethical questions when trying to address and counter such such operations.
This session will engage with the key issues surrounding human decision-making, from politics, to questions of identity, to capitalism. The panel will enable a conversation between many different disciplines: neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, anthropology, and sociology. We will consider how human decision-making has evolved. How do sense perceptions and experience form judgments that lead to a decision? What role do emotions play in all this? And finally, how have social and political shift and technological innovation impacted these cognitive processes?
This discussion will be moderated by Prof Neville Bolt, Director of the King's Centre for Strategic Communications at King's College London and editor-in-chief of "Defence Strategic Communications". Panelists: Charles Kriel (digital theorist & practitioner, broadcaster and journalist), Ofer Fridman (lecturer at the Department of War Studies, King's College London), Claire Yorke (nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council), Dr Andriy Tyushka (Research Fellow, European Neighborhood Policy Chair, College of Europe).
Building on experience from the seminar “Trends in Social Media and Their Further Development“ that was held in 2017 (you can watch the videos here), in 2018 we will discuss emerging challenges and opportunities for strategic communications in social media. Experts speaking at this seminar will come from the private sector, academia, media, military and government institutions.
Much confusion surrounds the nature of “hybrid warfare” – conflict that includes multiple dimensions such as conventional/unconventional, regular/irregular, cyber and informational tactics. Emerging threats are redefining security priorities for NATO allies which include Canada and a majority of European Union member states. The panelists will offer insights on these evolving tactics, and share experiences and best practices from the Baltics.
This seminar will focus on tools the commercial sector deems fundamental to successful communication - collaboration and gamifcation, internal communication, and storytelling.
On 5 - 6 July, the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence hosted the “The Riga StratCom Dialogue”, gathering some of the most influential minds in strategic communication, media, defence, and security.
'Post-truth' was named word of the year by the Oxford Dictionary, and we were forced to consider the scenario that we might be also witnessing the sudden and shocking death of expertise. But to confine this issue to recent memory is to overlook the ways in which the authority of facts has been in decline for some time. A free press might provide some resistance to the excesses of populist demagogy, but not to the broader crisis of facts. Some experts think that the problem lies with information overload in 21st century...
