AUDREY CRONIN

We are in a period of open technological innovation that gives ordinary individuals and small groups unprecedented power. The effects of these changes are all around us.  As examples, web-based applications, and social media and chat sites, recently enabled far-right extremists to plot, coordinate, and storm the U.S. Capital. And, those same tools then enabled the FBI to arrest those who engaged in criminal acts.

The diffusion of modern technologies, including digital media, robotics, cyber weapons, 3-D printing, synthetic biology, autonomous systems, machine learning, and various types of artificial intelligence, makes them all accessible to a much broader range of people now, especially in democracies. Power is shifting in the digital age. To shape a positive future, we must recognize and pay attention to what is happening in this arena.

In her presentation, based on her award-winning book, Dr. Audrey Kurth Cronin will discuss how terrorists and small groups have shared and used technology in the past, and how they are likely to do so now and in the future. The talk will also discuss countermeasures that can be used to prevent the abuse of new technologies, to maximize their promise to society, to protect our democracy, and to avoid an otherwise predictable unfolding of terrorism, insurrection, and insurgency in the future.