Postapocalyptic Cybernetics

Relentless fear-mongering about onrushing digital catastrophe massively distracts us from the real challenge: the catastrophic collapse of our pre-digital society has already occurred.

Staggering around in the rubble of what was expected to be our greatest triumph, we have lost faith that anything can stop what's coming. Cybernetics, which comes from the same Greek word as governance and the steering of ships, once held out the promise of keeping both men and machines under healthy control.

Cast aside amid the explosive growth and power of neural networks, control systems are now the object of an increasingly desperate hope to preserve our mastery over machine intelligence. But if the old cybernetics has already failed us, what new order can restore human authority -- and American civilization -- before it's too late?

Schedule

5:30 p.m. - Doors Open and Reception 6:30 p.m. - James Poulos Lecture 7:45 p.m. - Q&A 8:30 p.m. - Reception 9:30 p.m. - Event Closes James Poulos is the editorial director of Frontier magazine for Blaze Media and a nonresident senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation. He is the author of four books, including I Know This Sounds Crazy, a novel, which was the first book to be published on Bitcoin, Human Forever: the Digital Politics of Spiritual War, and the forthcoming Golden Age Problems. Previously, he co-created The American Mind and the Digital Statecraft Summit for the Claremont Institute and Return for New Founding. His prescient writing on the intersection of democracy, technology, and theology has been featured in American Affairs, The Claremont Review of Books, The New York Times, and Palladium, as well as on Capitol Hill, where he testified before the Senate five years ago on the looming danger of globalized theocratic technocracy.