Egenis seminar: Digital Dementia: The Futures of Ageing and Artificial Minds

Dr James Rupert Fletcher is coming to Byrne House on Monday 9 November for a seminar titled Digital Dementia: The Futures of Ageing and Artificial Minds. He's visiting from the University of Bath, and the session is hosted by Egenis, the Centre for the Study of Life Sciences at the University of Exeter.

The talk starts from the idea that older people already inhabit digital futures, and that ageing minds are shaped by the technologies they live with. Fletcher looks at how artificial intelligence, attention brokerage, social media and misinformation systems are transforming long-standing concerns about memory, attention, communication and delusion in people with dementia—for better and for worse. The central question he raises is whether these technologies, and the ideas that shape how they're used every day, might be designed differently to build better digital futures for ageing minds. In that framing, the politics of digital technology becomes the politics of cognitive ageing itself.

It's a hybrid session, so you can either head over to the Susan Kelly Seminar Room in Byrne House on the Streatham Campus—Saint German's Road, Exeter EX4 4PJ—or join in via Zoom if you can't make it in person. It runs from 15:15 to 17:00, and it's free to attend, though you'll need to register beforehand.