Online conference by Anthony Elliott AM, Distinguished Professor and Executive Director of the Jean Monnet Centre at Adelaide University, fellow at the Paris IAS in September 2026, as part of the "Paris IAS Ideas" series. Open to the public.

The "Paris IAS Ideas" online talk series features short and stimulating presentations from fellows of the Paris Institute for Advanced Study, marking the beginning of 1-month writing residencies.

Online only and in English. Open to the public. Free event but registration required. 
Register via the form at the bottom of the page to receive the connection link.

Presentation

We delegate more and more decisions and tasks to artificial agents, machine-learning algorithms, GenAI - or, in other words, to smart machines. This rapid growth in the externalisation (sometimes called ‘outsourcing’) of human decision-making to emerging technologies has brought about fundamental changes in the communication, storage, dissemination and repurposing of knowledge in contemporary societies. But these transformations also raise serious questions about human agency, about the importance of autonomy and the changing nature of public and private life.

This project develops a systematic and wide-ranging analysis of the digital externalisation of agency in the age of artificial intelligence, drawing out important distinctions between technologies as agents of change in the public domain as compared to developments in personal life. The key conceptual innovation consists in demonstrating that the delegation of decision-making to digital technologies involves struggles in the public domain and private life in which agency and autonomy are at stake. The outsourcing of decisions to smart machines does not necessarily erode agency and undermine autonomy, but does have the capacity to do so.