ICOG Research Day 2026
Join us at the ICOG Research Day 2026 on the 18th March 2026! This event is designed to bring together the vibrant community of ICOG researchers, fostering collaboration and showcasing the diverse work being done across the research institute. Through engaging talks, thought-provoking panel sessions, and ample networking opportunities, you'll have the chance to discover what your colleagues are working on, exchange ideas, and build connections that can shape future research initiatives. Whether you are exploring the impact of AI on culture or the latest developments in European research policies, this day is all about strengthening our shared mission, building up community, and interdisciplinary collaboration.
This year’s event will feature the confirmed keynote speaker Professor Anthony Elliott, alongside a programme structured similarly to last year’s successful edition.
A general registration form will be available after the call for research group parallel panel sessions is over. The final version of the programme will be available very soon.
Keynote Lecture (10:00 - 11:30) The Consequences of AI: Fear in the Digital Age
A thought-provoking keynote address with internationally renowned sociologist Distinguished Professor Anthony Elliott as he explores the profound and unsettling impacts of artificial intelligence on our societies. Elliott examines how AI technologies — from chatbots to autonomous drones — are reshaping everything from work and politics to human relationships. This timely lecture investigates the rise of "algorithmic modernity" and the growing tension between opportunity and fear in our increasingly automated world.
From industrial robots to ChatGPT, and from driverless cars to military drones: AI is transforming all aspects of our lives, from the changing nature of work, employment and unemployment to the most intimate aspects of personal relationships.
In this lecture, Anthony Elliott focuses on the complex systems of AI – spanning intelligent machines, chatbots, advanced robotics, accelerating automation, big data – and their centrality to new forms of social interaction, organizational life and governance. He argues, provocatively, that today’s modernity has come to mean smartphones, tablets, cloud computing, big data, automated recommendation systems and predictive analytics. This has heralded the arrival of what Elliott terms ‘algorithmic modernity’, an altogether new ‘stage’ in the technological and cultural ordering of modern societies. In this brave new world, human agency is increasingly outsourced to smart machines. We should understand this phenomenon, Elliott argues, in terms of an intensification of opportunity and fear, as AI becomes increasingly enmeshed with fundamental disruption and anxieties about the future.
Anthony Elliott is Bradley Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Adelaide University, where he also serves as Executive Director of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence in Digital Transformations. He holds visiting professorships in Japan and Ireland and is a Fellow of several prestigious academic societies. An internationally acclaimed author, Elliott has written and edited over 50 books translated into 17 languages, including The Culture of AI, Making Sense of AI, Algorithmic Intimacy, and Algorithms of Anxiety. In 2023, he was appointed Member of the Order of Australia for his contributions to education and social science research.
