Staying in relation
in complex times

The next generation faces enormous uncertainty in their future. This ComplexitySalon features their perspective: ethical choices, hopes, and needs from elders.

ComplexitySalon is delighted to host Professor Laura Abbott from the UK and Tahlia Isaac from Australia, who will share their research and experiences relating to women and children navigating the justice systems. Together, they will explore how power operates at the margins of society, and what these experiences reveal about our humanity, our institutions, and the values we choose to uphold.

Join us to consider how diplomacy shows up in our everyday relationships. To look around the world at the moment one might conclude that there is a reformulation of how to exercise power and influence. Out go empathy, rules of engagement, liberal interdependence, good enough consensus, and in come chainsaws, coercion, bullying and faits accomplis. ComplexitySalon is delighted to host Dr. Geoff Raby AO - Australian Ambassador to China 2007-2011, Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the World Trade Organisation and to APEC amongst other major appointments; and author of a number of books and papers on global politics, including his most recent Great Game On: The Contest for Central Asia and Global Supremacy - to talk about the practice of diplomacy.

In a turbulent world, those with greater ability to influence often chose to push the burden of uncertainty onto those who are already more marginalised. The greater and more visible this inequality in society the more likely it is that groups who feel underrepresented become anxious and more susceptible to simplistic solutions.

AI brings huge potential for greater innovation and prosperity, and at the same time may cause radical instabilities in the way we organise our societies. No technological development is solely good, and becoming dependent on algorithms is bound to challenge what we think it means to be human. This was an opportunity to explore the everyday implications of AI in the workplace alongside hopes and fears.