Florence-2026

We were invited to hold this event by Professors Noshir Contractor and Leslie DeChurch as part of their Florence: Leading a Renaissance Then and Now Summer School Programme.

Our event linked to the key elements of the programme in particular:

• How can the learning experience of being in Florence inform some of the challenges for young people growing up in 2026?
• What role do our digital technologies play in our lives? Social Media and AI?
• How are we presented online? How does this impact the challenge of gaining employment after graduation for young people?
• How do we each manage our "Digital Brand"?
• When it comes to working in groups and teams how does bringing an AI Agent into the team impact it's effectiveness and decision making?
• How much Agency do we want to give to our Smart Machines as they become smarter and we become dumber?

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 explored:

• 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 were 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:  Tuesday 7thJuly, 2026 | 10:30 to 13:00
WHERE: The British Institute Library and Cultural Centre, Palazzo Lanfredini, Lungarno Guicciardini 9, 50125 Firenze

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