Can we reclaim our attention from a world preoccupied by our data productivity?
Jenny Odell's book, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, argues that reconnecting with our body and physical environment may be our most important form of resistance from society’s preoccupation with productivity.
Following a solo talk by Jenny Odell, AI expert Toby Walsh, reporter Cam Wilson, and technology journalist Ariel Bogle will join Odell for a discussion on what we can do to resist the profit-driven tech landscape.
Presented with UNSW Sydney.
Jenny Odell (International)
Jenny Odell is the author of How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy and Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock. She is also an interdisciplinary artist and has been in residence at the San Francisco Planning Department, Recology SF (otherwise known as the dump), and the Internet Archive. Odell taught digital art at Stanford University from 2013 to 2021. An enthusiast of birding, geology, and local history, she is based in Oakland, California.
Toby Walsh (Australian)
Toby Walsh is Chief Scientist of UNSW's new AI Institute. He is a strong advocate for limits to ensure AI improves our lives, having spoken at the UN, and to heads of state, parliamentary bodies, company boards and many others on this topic. This advocacy has led to him being ‘banned indefinitely’ from Russia. He was named on the international ‘Who's Who in AI’ list of influencers. His most recent book is Machines Behaving Badly: the morality of AI.
Ariel Bogle (Australian)
Ariel Bogle is a technology reporter with the ABC. She has won various awards for her work, including for a three-part radio series on health misinformation. Her reporting has been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Atlantic and The Australian Financial Review, among other places.
