Executive director Justin Bassi’s foreword for ASPI’s The Sydney Dialogue 2025, being held on 4 and 5 December.
Technology is one of the most powerful forces shaping our world. It can empower societies or unsettle them, illuminate or distort public discourse, enable consensus or entrench censorship and control. Its impact reaches from the individual to the geopolitical, remaking economies, reshaping security, reordering power and competitiveness and redefining sovereignty.
We are again living in an era where technology sits at the centre of strategic competition—between states, between the state and the technology sector, and among technology ecosystems. But, in this era, the contest is no longer confined to military domains nor between states. It is playing out across supply chains, data ecosystems, digital platforms and the critical infrastructure on which we rely in our daily lives. It is increasingly deep within societies, creating uncertainty about which models of governance—and which values—will hold strategic advantage over the long run.
Each day, news headlines feature debates on electric vehicles, solar panels, data centres, cloud services and social media platforms. While all nations—big and small—are struggling to find the right mediums, platforms and infrastructure, there is a strategic race to not just out-innovate competitors but to set the rules, standards and practices for how that technology is used. These govern physical and digital infrastructure that supplies the information we need to make decisions. They help us judge whether we trust that information.
Only those who actively acknowledge this contest and get onto the field of play will have the chance to shape it. Those who don’t will just be shaped, and not necessarily by those that hold dear democratic principles such as individual freedoms and human rights.
The rapid adoption of AI is supercharging the debate and contest. Once considered the domain of decentralised democracies that had always promoted innovation, it now includes authoritarian regimes too. And while historically they sought to copy, catch up to, or disrupt new tech, as they did with the internet and social media, they now pursue leadership of, and dominance in, this technology revolution.
Artificial intelligence with an ability to perform intellectual tasks long reserved for humans is improving rapidly, and yet there is a risk that our policy and regulatory responses are complacent, fragmented or paralysed in the face of this transformation.
The likelihood of a massive, maybe permanent, disruption to the job market, and the social and political chaos that would likely follow, is such that we need to start examining options for radical economic models, social contracts and valuations of human activity.
Artificial general intelligence, which would be equal to or better than humans at any economically useful task, is plausibly just a few years away. Dario Amodei, chief executive of research company Anthropic, warned in May this year that AI could wipe out half of entry-level white-collar jobs—and push up unemployment to 10 to 20 percent in the next one to five years. Amodei urged the AI industry and governments to stop sugar-coating the risks.
Not all technologists and analysts agree with what some call a doomer view of tech development. But whether you are a doomer or bloomer, or even a utopist, politicians, policymakers and the public must engage in conversations about the power of technology and its potential impact on us all.
That’s why it’s so important to have conversations like those at The Sydney Dialogue—where it isn’t just impenetrable ones and zeros or lofty policy prose but practical and pioneering discussions on the intersection of critical technology with society, security and sovereignty, and where we can learn from each other and empower one another with an improved sense of direction.
We have gathered the right people at the right place at the right time—not hiding from the insecurities of the world but facing them head on, together. The complex task of social and economic advancement, achieved in a way that keeps citizens safe whether they’re on line or off, is one in which the public, private and civil society sectors can only achieve together.
We don’t need to forge full and unanimous agreement. In fact, it’s the healthy contest of ideas that is the best way to remain at the cutting edge of both technological and policy innovation, as well as managing change, whether foreseen or unforeseen.
During this Sydney Dialogue we’ll discuss national responses to global technologies, including semiconductors, quantum, the balancing of domestic sovereignty with global supply chains and how we can remain open yet secure.
As technology advances so quickly, we are forced to learn as we go along. The key question for us is whether we will be only students in the class or whether we will be at the front of the room helping to guide the class—as policymakers, regulators and engineers.
Let’s be among those who guide.