Event Date: September 12, 2022 - 11:30 am to 1:00 pm
Location: FSS 4007

Registration: Eventbrite

The talk will be in English.
A light lunch will be served.

Presented by CIPS and ISSP

The Centre for International Policy Studies (CIPS) and the Institute for Science, Society and Policy (ISSP) are very pleased to host Professor James Der Derian who will be giving a talk entitled “The Third Quantum Revolution: Science and Technology, Geopolitics and Ethics.” 

A third quantum revolution is now on the horizon, with the potential to transform how we produce wealth, wage war, make peace and manage the international order. Leveraging the special properties of qubits (a quantum bit), quantum computers have demonstrated exponential advantages over classical computers in speed, scale and capability. Quantum computing, communications, control and artificial intelligence could help mitigate climate change, transform material science and optimise the flow of goods, resources and money. It could also break public key cryptography, transform warfare and take surveillance, data-mining and artificial intelligence to Orwellian levels of omniscience and omnipotence. A quantum race is on, with the potential for both collaboration and conflict. What will be the impact on national security and economic prosperity, as well as on human rights and personal freedoms?

Speaker:

James Der Derian is Michael Hintze Chair of International Security and Director of the Centre of International Security Studies at the University of Sydney. He writes books and produces documentaries on war, peace, media and technology, including After 9/11 (2003), Virtuous War: Mapping the Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Network (2009), Critical Practices in International Theory (2009), Human Terrain: War Becomes Academic (2010), Project Z: The Final Global Event (2015), and Quantum International Relations: A Human Science for World Politics (co-edited with Alexander Wendt, 2022).  He also directs two projects on the geopolitical and ethical implications of emerging quantum technologies, funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and New South Wales Government Sydney Quantum Academy.  He is currently working on a book and documentary film, Project Q: War, Peace and Quantum Mechanics.

 Chair:

Rita Abrahamsen is Professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and the Director of the Centre for International Policy Studies (CIPS). Her research interests are in African politics and security, Africa and International Relations, postcolonial theory, as well as the Global Right.