Synthetic Societies, Human Vulnerability and Systemic Fragility in a Context of Rising Power

This symposium, jointly hosted by EXTRA – Existential Threats and Risks to All (an initiative of the World Academy of Arts and Science) and CIRET – Centre International de Recherches et Études Transdisciplinaires, tackles a defining challenge of our algorithmic age: As machines increasingly govern human life, how do we keep societies coherent, accountable, and resilient? As algorithmic systems mediate our social, political, economic, and cultural lives, contemporary societies are becoming "synthetic" environments shaped by automated decision-making, predictive analytics, generative AI, and platform governance—powerful yet largely opaque to those they govern. This expert panel examines the rising tension between technological capability and human vulnerability, and how synthetic societies produce new forms of systemic fragility: eroding public trust, amplifying misinformation, concentrating power, and weakening democratic accountability. 🔍 Key Questions: -How do algorithmic systems reshape human agency and collective decision-making? -What risks arise when synthetic systems become too complex to audit or contest? -How can societies build resilience against cascading failures and systemic dependency? -What regulation, institutional design, and public literacy can preserve human-centered futures? 🎤 Welcome Address: Garry Jacobs – President and CEO, WAAS 🎙️ Moderators: Prof. Dr. Thomas Reuter – Chair, EXTRA; Prof., University of Melbourne; Trustee, WAAS Florent Pasquier – President, CIRET; Sorbonne Université 👥 Speakers: Jerome C. Glenn (USA) – CEO, The Millennium Project; Chair, AI Advisory Committee to the UN General Assembly Dr. Mirella Tarmure Vadean (Canada) – Associate Professor, Université de l'Ontario Français Bacely YoroBi (USA/Côte d'Ivoire) – Founder & CEO, Scorton Cristina Elena Popa Tache (Romania) – Dean, Danubius International University; Director, CIRET Paris Observatory of Law and Transdisciplinarity Kiriti Prasad Choudhury (Bangladesh) – AI, IT & Data Analytics Specialist, EXTRA team 🔗 EXTRA InfoHub: https://worldacademy.org/extra/ 📧 [email protected] #syntheticsocieties #algorithmicpower #artificialintelligence #existentialrisk #aigovernance #EXTRA #CIRET #worldacademy #WAAS #transdisciplinarity #aiethics #democracy #agi