Please note that the above lecture is now sold out. However, if you would like to come it may still be woth registering your interest, as the lecture could possibly be moved to a larger venue.

The Norfolk Cambridge Society cordially invites you to the second in its new series of public lectures. The second lecture is to be given by Professor David Runciman on the topic of "Young Versus Old - A Democratic Time Bomb".

Professor David Runciman

Professor Runciman is the Head of the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University. He has published six books, including Political Hypocrisy: The Mask of Power, from Hobbes to Orwell and Beyond; The Confidence Trap: A History of Democracy in Crisis from World War I to the Present, and his most recent book, How Democracy Ends, published 2018, referred to by the Guardian as a bracingly intelligent book. Questions and the opportunity to buy signed copies of his books will follow the lecture.

Professor Runciman's research interests are late-nineteenth and twentieth century political thought;  theories of the state and of political representation;  various aspects of contemporary political philosophy and contemporary politics. He is also joint-PI on two major research projects based in CRASSH: Conspiracy and Democracy and Technology and Democracy, one of which looks at the possible implications of machine learning and artificial intelligence for democratic politics. What will these changes mean for accountability, representation and collective identity?  Who will be responsible for what in a world where many decisions are franchised out to machines?  What role will be left for public opinion and electoral politics?  This research will also explore some of the historical parallels and in particular the comparison between AI and other forms of artificial decision-making.  Are robots so different from corporations, and if so, how?

More information on can be found here.