Speech, Writing and Thought in the AI Era:
First Covid • Then AI • Now What?
Something is happening to language, to knowledge, and to the ways human beings make sense together. AI systems now mediate how stories are told, how ideas travel, and how cultural expression is produced and distributed across the world. These systems were initially trained on large troves of internet data, western in orientation, and to a great extent in the English-language. This bias shapes what gets amplified and what gets erased. It determines, in ways we are only beginning to understand, who defines the symbolic resources of a society.
This is a conversation worth having.
The Future Learning Lab at the University of Agder invites scholars, artists, policymakers, and cultural practitioners to join us for our informal Roundtable 2026: Speech, Writing and Thought in the AI Era — an open, interdisciplinary gathering that asks questions about cultural power, institutional responsibility in education and culture.
Keynote address by L. K. Bertram, professor of History at the University of Toronto, followed by four roundtable discussions.
- How do education institutions cope with a global information system gone amok?
- About our uses of AI — How are students responding?
- How to improve on connecting the dots between social science, humanities, and creative arts?
- Reclaiming truth, trust, and reflection in an algorithmic society: A lost cause?
Visit the Future Learning Lab website for program and more information.