[PHILOS-L] Upcoming Social Contract Research Network Zoom Seminars
Chris Watkin
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Registration is free, by clicking on the link in the relevant seminar description.
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Emerging Questions in AI Welfare
Geoff Keeling, Staff Research Scientist, Google
Tuesday 24 March 2026, 8pm Melbourne time. 9am London. Time conversions here.
Register here for the Zoom meeting.
This talk investigates whether artificial intelligence (AI) systems could ever be welfare subjects, understood as entities for which things can go better or worse. Some people argue that AIs could plausibly have or soon have features like consciousness, agency, and the capacity for social relationships, which could in principle provide a basis for AI welfare. These arguments have massive significance for the societal conversation on AI, raising profound ethical and political questions about what if anything we owe to these new technologies. I will provide some philosophical groundwork for a scientific, philosophical, and ultimately democratic inquiry into the potential for AI welfare, addressing key questions that cut across different arguments: what welfare is, how to interpret behavioural evidence of AI welfare, what kinds of entities might qualify as candidate AI welfare subjects, the potential grounds for welfare in AI, and the practical ethical and political challenges that arise from our uncertainty.
Dr. Geoff Keeling is a Staff Research Scientist at Google (Google Research). He is a philosopher working on the ethical and societal impacts of AI, with interests including alignment, manipulation, trust, digital minds, and human–AI relationships. Prior to Google, he held a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University, and he completed a PhD in Philosophy at the University of Bristol.
Slaves to the algorithms? Algocracy and republican liberty
Robert Sparrow, Professor of Philosophy, Monash University
Time tbc
Increasingly, governments are relying on artificial intelligence to make, or inform, important decisions—a phenomenon that John Danaher has styled, “algocracy”. Republicanism implies that there are at least four different reasons to be concerned about algocracy. First, decisions made using AI will often be impossible for citizens to contest because the reasons for the decisions will be inscrutable, which calls into question the legitimacy of these decisions. Second, the inability of citizens to contest the outcomes of government decisions made using AI and/or the justification for the use of AI will render these arbitrary and inimical to liberty on a republican account. Third, overreliance on AI is likely to undermine civic virtues that are necessary to the defence of liberty. Fourth, AI is such a powerful technology that it may free governments from any fear of revolution. If we wish to benefit from the use of AI in government without sacrificing liberty, we must: ensure that decisions made by AI can be publicly contested; investigate ways to mitigate the impact of algocracy on the political culture of democracies; and resist the temptation to develop AI for applications that would grant governments too much power over their citizens.
Robert Sparrow is Professor of Philosophy at the Monash Data Futures Institute. His work focuses on the ethical implications of adopting new technologies, ranging from artificial intelligence to genetic engineering, with an emphasis on formulating ethical arguments that contribute to public and political debate. He is also an Associate Investigator at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making & Society (ADM+S) and is listed as a Chief Investigator at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science.
Inclusive Economics: How Could AI Technologies Shape a New Inclusive Economy?
Simon Angus, Professor, Impact Labs, Monash University
Monday 27 April 2026, 8pm Melbourne time, 8pm Melbourne time. 11am London; 6am New York City. Time conversions here.
Register here for the Zoom meeting.
Sometime in 2017, Google researchers developed and demonstrated the 'transformer' architecture, a fundamentally new way to overcome the human--computer representation problem. Fast forward to 2026 and we see the rapid integration of AI systems through all aspects of modern economic life. I will argue that more than the typical economic lens of general purpose technology, we should also conceptualise AI systems as a new kind of institutional infrastructure -- a mediating layer that shapes who can participate in the economy, and on what terms. There is huge potential here for new kinds of economic inclusion, but also great risks around bias, dependency, surveillance, and power concentration. My aim is not to bring answers but prompt a discussion about governance, autonomy, and human flourishing in this new Age of AI.
Simon Angus is a Professor in the School of Business and Economics at Monash University, Australia, and is affiliated as Professor with Impact Labs. He describes his work as computational and complexity science, applying methods such as numerical simulation, data science/engineering, machine learning, and agent-based modelling across the social, biological, and physical sciences, with increasing focus on projects at the intersection of empirical social science and applied machine learning.
Rethinking the Social Contract: A Ricœurian Perspective
Laure Gillot-Assayag, JSPS-CNRS postdoctoral researcher, Keio University, Japan
Tuesday 12 May 2026, 8pm Melbourne time. 11am London; 6am New York City. Time conversions here.
Register here for the Zoom meeting.
This presentation examines the contribution of Paul Ricœur’s political philosophy to the social contract tradition. It shall explain how Ricœur’s notion of the “political paradox” highlights the fundamental ambiguity of political power: the state exists to establish justice and protect citizens yet simultaneously contains the potential for domination and violence. Drawing on Ricœur’s understanding of justice as requiring both interpersonal ethics and institutional structures, the presentation further highlights how Ricœur conceives institutions as essential mediations, extending solicitude beyond face-to-face relationships. His framework for understanding ethics and institutions as necessary for actualizing the good life provides resources for reimagining the social contract, by grounding political legitimacy in a distinctive type of relationality and the dynamic pursuit of just institutional arrangements, rather than mere hypothetical, rational, and abstract consent.
Dr. Laure Gillot-Assayag is a postdoctoral scholar at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany (Democratic Vistas). Former visiting scholar at Monash University (Prato campus), she published her research in political philosophy in the Ricœur Studies, the Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy, the Journal of Philosophy of Education, and soon Democratic Theory. Her book on Paul Ricœur is forthcoming with SUNY Press. In 2025, she received the Paul Ricœur Excellence Prize for the best paper on Paul Ricœur.
School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics
Monash University
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Australia
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