Nostos Salon 08
A monthly gathering of good food, drinks, and conversation—where anthropology meets community in an engaging, accessible way.
Social Media, Artificial Intelligence, and Emerging Social Futures with Professor Lisa Given
Our Nostos gathering on Sunday the 28th of June will explore social media, artificial intelligence, and emerging social futures, examining how digital technologies are reshaping the ways we communicate, relate, learn, and make sense of the world around us. In an era increasingly shaped by algorithmic systems, generative AI, data extraction, and rapidly shifting online cultures, this conversation invites us to reflect on how technological change is transforming human experience, social connection, and public life.
Through the lens of anthropology, information studies, and the social sciences, we’ll explore how people engage with information in evolving digital environments, and how platforms and AI systems influence identity, trust, creativity, knowledge, and power. How are social media and AI reshaping the ways communities form and meaning is produced? What impact do social media bans actually have? What happens to expertise, authenticity, and collective memory in increasingly mediated worlds? And how might critical social research help us navigate the ethical and social complexities of emerging technological futures?
We are delighted to welcome Lisa Given, Distinguished Professor of Information Sciences, Director & Co-Founder of the Centre for Human-AI Information Environments, and Director of the Social Change Enabling Impact Platform at RMIT University. An interdisciplinary researcher, her work explores how people engage with information, technology, and AI through critical, human-centred approaches. A Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, she has led major international research collaborations focused on social change, digital life, and qualitative research innovation.
This afternoon salon invites participants into an open and engaging dialogue about the social implications of rapidly evolving technologies and the futures they are helping to shape. Together, we’ll explore how anthropology and the social sciences can deepen our understanding of digital life, and how more reflective, ethical, and human-centred approaches to technology might help cultivate more connected and equitable futures.
Special thanks to NON and NOW Wines for supporting this event.
Recommended Reading and Resources via Zine
"No society has ever yet been able to handle the temptations of technology to mastery, to waste, to exuberance, to exploration and exploitation."
— Margaret Mead