Technology Rewriting Us: Ancient Tech, AI and Being Human

Talks on Tuesdays: Real lectures in your favourite venues. 45-mins + Q&A with Peter Brace Talks on Tuesdays is a live event series bringing big ideas, real experts, and curious minds together - at your favourite local venues. Think thought-provoking lectures, audience questions, and post-talk mingling over drinks and dinner. This isn’t a uni lecture. It’s a social, intelligent night out.Come alone or with friends, leave with something to talk about. Event Schedule: 6.30pm Arrival & Doors Open 7pm Lecuture Starts 7.45pm Q&A 8pm Talk Concludes 8.30pm Event Closes. *Please arrive close to 6.30pm A La Carte menu and full bar available throughout the night - pay as you go. Your Topic: Technology Rewriting Us: Ancient Tech, AI and Being Human Back after a sold-out first run. An ancient technology changed how people thought, learned and organised their societies, and its critics warned it would ruin us. Were they right? Is AI about to do the same? AI is often accused of making us stupid, but the real question is what kind of stupid, and whether that might be good for humanity. Drawing on his university teaching on AI and organic intelligence, Peter explores how everyday AI use is reshaping how we think. For curious sceptics and cautious optimists who would rather wake up than sleepwalk into someone else’s future. Your Speaker: Peter Brace Dr Peter Brace is a philosopher, educator and consultant who explores how humans think, learn and adapt in an age of artificial intelligence. He teaches at Swinburne University across critical thinking, AI and cognition, and criminology and ethics. As founder of PsychSafety Asia-Pacific and author of Practical Psychological Safety in Asia-Pacific, he works with organisations across the region on psychological and psychosocial safety and the human consequences of AI adoption. Peter believes large language models, in Walt Whitman’s words, contain multitudes, capable of great harm and great benefit. The work of education, he argues, is learning to tell the difference.