Colombo 2025

Brave Conversations Colombo 2025 unfolds against the backdrop of sweeping social, political, and technological shifts shaping our world.

• 2025 continues the trend of large-scale democratic engagement worldwide, it was described in 2024 as an ‘election extravaganza’ - see https://www.economist.com/international/2024/02/11/the-2024-democracy-test

• AI, machine learning and large language models are now maturing into powerful autonomous agents, raising new questions about security, alignment, and real-world deployment - see https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.03574?utm_source=chatgpt.com

• Augmented reality, mixed-reality, and immersive tech are increasingly mainstream — prompting new debates about how we live, work, and interact in digitally augmented spaces - see https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2023/10/13/the-10-biggest-ar-vr-and-immersive-internet-trends-in-2024/

• Social Media companies are under increasing scrutiny by governments and regulatory authorities around online safety - see https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-68161632

• Sri Lanka’s Online Safety Act (passed in 2023/24) has sparked intense debate — triggering concerns over freedom of expression, digital rights, and how to balance online safety with human rights. - see https://globalnetworkinitiative.org/sri-lankas-online-safety-act-a-year-in-review-and-framework-for-reform/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

• Sri Lanka is developing a national AI strategy with ambitions to expand digital services, automate public information delivery, and grow its digital economy — while also facing scrutiny over data privacy and rights-based design - see https://www.accessnow.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Comments-on-Sri-Lanka-draft-National-Strategy-on-AI.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com

• Advances in ageing science and biotechnology are fueling fresh optimism about human longevity, even as they stir ethical questions around lifespan extension and healthcare equity - see https://www.economist.com/technology-quarterly/2023-09-30

• It is hoped that renewable energy sources will achieve one third of global power generation in 2024 - see https://ourworldindata.org/renewable-energy

Within all of these themes the most important is perhaps not the technological advances, but what the implications are for humans and the human systems within which we live.

Brave Conversations invites minds to get curious and explore selected questions about how emerging technologies shape our daily lives, and most importantly to reflect on how we can preserve both our humanity and our agency in the Age of Smart Machines.

We will be exploring

• What is the definition of a human in the Age of the Smart Machine?
• What is the role of a human in this Age of the Smart Machine?
• How do we retain our humanity whilst harnessing the power of Smart Machines to improve life for all on Planet Earth?

We will be guided in our conversations by the use of Mark Moore’s Strategic Triangle asking:

• What Can We Do?
• What Should We Do?
• What May We Do?

"We assumed people were going to do good things with it.  We really didn’t have any idea of what bad things people would do with it. Everything that is bad within society is writ large within the Internet.  They lose their moral compass in a way."

Professor Dame Wendy Hall in Interview with Beth Ridley

At Brave Conversations, our purpose is to invite everyone -no matter their background, skills, or expertise- to pause and reflect on the deep entanglement between people, our societies, and the technologies we create.

We want to encourage participants to think critically about the choices we make every day: how we live our lives, how we engage in the economy, and how we act as digital citizens exercising our rights. True empowerment comes when we strip away the mystery around data and information, and begin to see how they shape even the smallest decisions that, collectively, build our shared future.

Every choice starts at a personal level -with our bodies, our minds, and the way we interact with the world. From there, the ripple spreads outward: to families, communities, societies, and nations. Each of us plays a role in shaping what comes next, and never before have we had such power to influence the changes unfolding around us.

But to do this well, we need space: space for honest debate, respectful curiosity, and playful exploration. Brave Conversations is that space -a place where we can ask hard questions, wrestle with uncomfortable truths, and learn from each other as we navigate this complex age together.

The best way to learn is through experience and the act of playing with ideas, to imagine, to challenge, and to be creative. The things that humans do best.
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WHEN:  10th and 11th November, 2025
WHERE: The W002 hall at UCSC
University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC)
35 Reid Avenue
Colombo 07, Sri Lanka

University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC