Our speakers for the evening were Professor Lisa Given and Distinguished Professor Anthony Elliott AM, who toook the stage to explore this fascinating theme alongside podcast host and journalist Ginger Gorman, our moderator for the debate.

The Great Debate promised to be a thought-provoking and entertaining event, with opportunities for audience participation and engagement.

Tickets were $15 per person, including entry to the event and drinks and canapes on arrival from 5:00 pm, before the debate starts at 6:00 pm.

Friends of the National Library receive a $5 discount. Check your weekly Friends eNews for the discount code to apply when booking, or contact the Friends office for assistance.

This event was presented in association with the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia for 2024 Social Sciences Week.

About the speakers

Professor Lisa Given

Professor Lisa Given is an interdisciplinary researcher in human information behaviour whose work brings a critical, social research lens to studies of technology use and user-focused design. Her studies embed social change, focusing on diverse settings and populations, and methodological innovations across disciplines. A former President of the Association for Information Science and Technology, Professor Given has served on the Australian Research Council's (ARC's) College of Experts.

She holds numerous grants funded by ARC, Canadian Institutes for Health Research and Canada's Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, working with university and community partners across disciplines. She is lead author of the forthcoming 5th edition of Looking for Information: A Survey of Research on Information Seeking, Needs and Behavior, author of 100 Questions (and Answers) about Qualitative Research (2016), and editor of The Sage Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods (2008).

Distinguished Professor Anthony Elliott AM

Professor Anthony Elliott AM is Dean of External Engagement at the University of South Australia, where he is Bradley Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Executive Director of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence in UniSA: Justice and Society. In June 2023, Professor Elliott was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia for significant service to education, social science policy and research.

Professor Elliott is an internationally distinguished social scientist who fosters universities' public engagement and service to society, and he is one of the most influential and widely published social theorists in the world, with over 50 books translated in 17 languages.

He currently serves as a member of the Australian Research Council's College of Experts. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in the UK, Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, a Fellow of the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust, and a Senior Member of King's College, Cambridge. He also holds appointments as Super-Global Professor of Sociology (Visiting) at Keio University, Japan, and Visiting Full Professor of Sociology at University College Dublin, Ireland.

In recent years, Professor Elliott has turned his scholarly focus to the digital revolution and artificial intelligence. From 2017 to 2019, he served as a member of the Expert Working Group of the Australian Council of Learned Academies (ACOLA) on AI at the request of the Prime Minister's Commonwealth Science Council, and with support from the Australian Research Council (ARC), the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, and the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science.

In 2017, he served as a member of ACOLA's Artificial Intelligence Scoping Project Committee, Academy of Science and the Academy of Technology and Engineering. He has devoted his time to advising many new and aspiring technology leaders, mentoring students interested in careers in AI, teaching in executive education programs, and writing and speaking on salient topics resulting from the AI revolution – innovations in enterprise, the transformation of universities, the impact of digital technologies on society, and business governance and leadership, among others. His latest books in this area are The Culture of AI (Routledge, 2019) and Making Sense of AI: Our Algorithmic World (Polity, 2021).

Ginger Gorman

Ginger Gorman is an award winning print and radio journalist based in the Australian Capital Territory. She is also a 2006 World Press Institute Fellow. Her freelance work has been published in print and online in publications such as news.com.au, The Huffington Post, The Guardian, The Age and the ABC's Drum website. Ginger is also the author of Troll Hunting, a window into not just the mindset of internet trolls, but also the profound changes in the way we live and work in a post-internet world. Her remarkable investigation will change the way you think about the internet, and what it means to be a human online.