Date: 8 December 2025 | 17:00–18:30 CET
Format: Online panel featuring short talks, followed by an open discussion
About the Workshop
With significant public investment and political capital currently riding on AI, particularly generative AI, the socio-economic and political consequences of the hype bubble bursting will be profound. This would be a fork in the road for states, and state authorities who have been championing and adopting GenAI. These actors can either change course, and seek new ways to tackle societal challenges, or continue to implement sub optimal and potentially harmful applications using GenAI. Given that many states have aligned with the techno-solutionist discourses and have framed AI adoption in terms of geopolitical positioning, the latter is more likely.
To prepare for this, and mitigate its potential harms, the workshop will focus on the organisational, technical, and social tools we can develop in advance to cushion the societal impacts of the GenAI bubble bursting. In doing so, we aim to preserve institutional legitimacy, redirect existing AI investments toward salvaging public benefit, and maintain old, and open new, avenues for AI development that aligns with the public interest. We will do so by focusing on a range of scales, from the geopolitical to the local.
We invite participants to reflect on how a range of stakeholders, such as governments, civil society, and academia, can respond to the decline of GenAI in ways that promote resilience, accountability, and long-term public value.
Panel discussion between
- Virginia Dignum, Professor in Responsible AI, Director Policy Lab, Department of Computing Science, Umeå University.
- Gary Marcus, Scientist, author and entrepreneur, known as a leading voice in AI. Six books including The Algebraic Mind, Rebooting AI, and Taming Silicon Valley; NYU Professor Emeritus.
- Wendy Hall, Regius Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton and Director of the Web Science Institute. A pioneer in AI policy and web science, she co-chaired the UK Government’s AI Review and now serves on the UN’s High-Level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence
- Gry Hasselbalch, Danish author and scholar specialising in the politics and power dynamics of technology, with a focus on data, AI ethics, and the historical forces shaping technological development.
- Joshua Gans, Professor of Strategic Management, at the University of Toronto; economist who studies innovation, entrepreneurship, and business strategy and author of The Prediction Machine.
- Frank Dignum, Professor in socially-aware AI, Department of Computing Science, Umeå University, Director of Umeå University’s research center on Transdisciplinary AI for the Good of All (TAIGA).
Moderator:
Jason Tucker
Adjunct Associate Professor at the AI Policy Lab, Umeå University and Researcher at the Institute for Futures Studies.
Participation
The workshop will run for 90 minutes, combining short expert talks with an open discussion.
Participation is open to anyone interested in the societal and policy implications of AI, whether you work in government, academia, civil society, or simply want to join the conversation.
👉 Register here to reserve your place.
AI Policy Lab 