| 26 November 2026 17:00–19:00 GMT Robert Emmet Theatre, Trinity College Dublin, College Green, Dublin 2 (in person) Reserve a spot: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/predatory-ai-a-keynote-lecture-by-professor-nick-couldry-tickets-2003503244136 |
We warmly welcome you to hear Professor Nick Couldry (London School of Economics and Political Science) present his new book, Predatory AI: How We Can Resist Corporate Capture of the Human Mind (Polity, November 2026), and open a discussion on AI and the future of humanity and the planet. The UCD Centre for Digital Policy and Research Ireland ADAPT Centre at Trinity College Dublin co-host the lecture as part of FORSEE.
AI is often presented as inevitable. Couldry asks whether humanity is entering the wrong social contract with AI, one that hands our lives and our cognitive resources to models whose terms we don’t control. According to the publisher (Polity Press) the book argues that “a good future with AI must mean putting social, community and planetary values first.” It describes the social damage already done at work, and in the education and creative sectors in particular, and argues that the time to renegotiate our contract with AI is now. Predatory AI is the second book in Couldry’s trilogy, Humanising the Future.
About the speaker:
Nick Couldry is a sociologist of media and culture. He is Professor of Media Communications and Social Theory at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and since 2017 a Faculty Associate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. He is the author or editor of eighteen books including The Costs of Connection (with Ulises Mejias, Stanford University Press, 2019), The Mediated Construction of Reality (with Andreas Hepp, Polity, 2016), and Media, Society, World: Social Theory and Digital Media Practice (Polity 2012). His latest books are Predatory AI: How We can Resist Corporate Capture of the Human Mind (Polity, November 2026), The Space of the World: Can Human Solidarity Survive Social Media and What if it Can’t? (Polity, 2024) and Data Grab: The New Colonialism of Big Tech and How to Fight Back (Chicago University Press 2024, with Ulises Mejias). Nick is also the co-founder of the Tierra Común network of scholars and activists (https://www.tierracomun.net/).
