The Big Tech Debate returns for the fourth year offering a dynamic, interactive session that challenges conventional thinking. This year’s debate discusses how dual‑use technology is rapidly reshaping the relationship between civilian and defence innovation. Civilian sectors now drive advances in AI, drones and quantum, leaving defence exposed if it stays at arm’s length. With military R&D overshadowed by big‑tech investment, closer alignment feels financially inevitable, and some argue that civilian norms could even raise ethical standards. In this view, technology is neutral – governance determines its impact.
The counter argument warns that merging these worlds carries serious democratic risks. As defence work shifts into civilian companies, oversight weakens, researchers may be drawn into weapons development without consent, and open ecosystems become channels for proliferation. The same technologies that strengthen security and resilience can also be adapted for offensive use or misused at scale, raising difficult questions about accountability and control. Power risks consolidating in a small, unaccountable tech elite. Some argue that rejecting integration simply concedes the technological edge to authoritarian states. Others insist that democracies must accept strategic limits to protect their values, and that dissolving the boundary between civilian and defence innovation goes too far. Expect a fast, provocative exchange on whether separating these domains is still possible in practice.
Speakers:
- Kateryna Bezsudna, Director, TEKEVER Ukraine
- Shane Mason, Founder & Director, Strategical
Location: Queens College, Cambridge
Date: Thursday 17 September
Time: 17:00 – 18:00*
The Big Tech Debate Agenda
*draft agenda, subject to change
*the narrative is subject to change but demonstrates the topic to be discussed.