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TRUTH AND FICTION IN AN AGE OF AI: Joanna Kavenna and John Bowers
Are we heading for an AI dream or an AI nightmare, or something else entirely? How do we ensure new technologies foreground human creativity and human lives? Who owns the future?
In this Principal’s Conversation, John Bowers and Joanna Kavenna will discuss questions around ethics, democracy and freedom in the AI Age, and the place of the creative arts in a reality that is (far) stranger than fiction.
Joanna Kavenna is an award-winning novelist and essayist whose work probes the fault lines between technology, power, and the human mind. Named one of Granta’s Best British Novelists in 2013, her writing is known for its philosophical depth, dark wit, and imaginative range. Her previous novel, Zed (Faber 2019), offers a sharp, dystopian satire of big-tech authoritarianism and algorithmic control. Her latest novel, Seven (Faber 2026), is about a game without rules. It encompasses encounters with philosophy, AI and dreams, poetry and the natural world. The plot travels through time and space, in a world without boundaries and where nothing can be pinned down and everything is in flux. It raises questions about how much we can truly know about reality.
Date:
4 March 2026, 17:30
Venue:
Brasenose College, Radcliffe Square OX1 4AJ
Venue Details:
Amersi Foundation Lecture Theatre - accessible
Speakers:
Joanna Kavenna,
Mr John Bowers KC (Principal, Brasenose College, Oxford)
Organising department:
Brasenose College
Organiser contact email address:
liz.bingham@bnc.ox.ac.uk
Booking required?:
Required
Booking url:
https://forms.office.com/e/erRDcfLjv5
Booking email:
liz.bingham@bnc.ox.ac.uk
Cost:
Free
Audience:
Members of the University only
Editor:
Elizabeth Bingham
