We are witnessing the crumbling of social compacts everywhere we turn, with linear paths of progression through education and industries no longer a guarantee of success in a career. Young people are facing seemingly unprecedented levels of uncertainty about the future and are turning inwards more than they are outwards to each other. Mid-careerists live with the spectre of being replaced by glorified chatbots that flattens their craft honed over decades into 2D. In a world inexorably arbitrated by tech – which is inseparable from AI nowadays – how can we rediscover our humanity, firstly for ourselves, and then as communities and societies?

And, what if human vs tech is a false dichotomy – what if there is a middle path? Eastern philosophy tends to stress the value of the middle path, or golden mean, and cautions against the swinging of the pendulum. What if we thought of AI as “good ghosting” – not an all-knowing chatbot or LLM, but small, localised presences? In the words of Sam de Silva, what if we imagine technology as “presence, spirit or kin”, and embed intelligence into the world rather than on top of it?

In this keynote, Jules Yim will share stories of how diverse peoples in Southeast Asia are negotiating their relationship to tech and each other, and finding ways to move from the periphery of global consciousness towards the core.

Jules Yim is a Senior Consultant at the Cynefin Co. and a Founding Curator at Seapunk Studios, the former focused on integrating academic thinking with practice in organisations, and the latter on