Black Swan Summit 2025: A Summary
The one about how the future is integrated, augmented, diverse, sustainable, about choice (and compromise), but is ultimately human-centred
I had the pleasure of attending and contributing at the inaugural Black Swan Summit in Perth this week where industry and community gathered to talk about tech and society, shifting paradigms in how we live and work, as well both practical and philosophical questions about what this means for humanity, and the paths we are paving for our collective futures.
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The future is integrated
More than ever I see our future lies in integration, however you wish to interpret this.
We spoke about how web3 tech and infrastructure as well as digital currencies will support going borderless with our economies and assets. It isn't as though globalisation doesn't exist, but we can get rid of the middle-men and reduce the literal and logistical costs of getting funds where they need to be in transparent and accountable ways whether that's for commerce or aid.
There's also the integration of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Quantum Computing, not to mention Biological Computing which was only briefly addressed this week. Our future will be systems that comprise of a blend of these technologies and any other innovations we have not yet imagined into being. No one of these things will completely replace or supersede the other because they each have uses for which they are better suited and we can configure them so they can do what they do best.
The future is augmented
Speaking of what we do best, there was a lot of discussion about advancements in AI and how we want it to be, and how it is, better than us. Here I take issue because 'Why?' Why do we want the technology we create to be better than we are? Technology is a tool and it should be helping to make us better. To make us want better, do better, and be better.
And I don't mean in terms of productivity.
Tech should be delegated the scutwork so that we have the time and capacity to do the things that each of us do best and that truly matters to us.
Tech should be used not to replace the need to think for ourselves, but to afford us the luxury of space to think for ourselves. To allow us to find out who we are and what our values are so that we can learn to connect with our own identity and not someone else's ideology.
As an aside, it also saddens me when people talk about how they can be replaced with AI and robots because there's only one you with your precise combination of skills and experiences. If you think your value as a human being can be replaced, and that you have nothing to offer that isn't already subsumed by technology, you need to find someone to talk to about your sense of self-worth and get some perspective and assistance in identifying your transferrable skillsets.
We're not only finding ways to augment our minds and spirits, and we didn't quite broach this topic, but we were only a small side-step away from:
Tech should allow us to augment our bodies so they can function the way we want or expect them to, and I'm not just referring to transhumanism — although we should start that conversation as well.
Because we have Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) in neurotechnology for sight and hearing, nanotechnology in medicine, and other forms of assistive devices close to, if not already on, the market, as well as the emerging technologies driving their manufacture or processing behind them.
The future is diverse
“Our diversity makes us a stronger facility.”
— Mark Gray, Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre
Diversity is about embracing all facets of who we are from our intersectionality to our academic or professional disciplines because these industries we've been speaking about encompass the full range of STEAM: Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts, Mathematics, and Medicine in our global community.
We're talking about systems of interconnected systems that involve climate systems, geopolitical boundaries, economic cycles, financial and societal infrastructures, cultural and anthropological factors, policy and governance, psychology and human behaviour. And that's not even addressing the science, engineering, medicine, and technology used in directly developing these emerging technologies.
Our diversity makes us a stronger community that represents whom our solutions are intended to serve and we can't do it without each other.
The future is sustainable
Or at least, we're working on it. At a time when we're more aware of the energy (not to mention resources) required to create all this tech and make it work, we need to find ways to do it more efficiently.
We spoke about the ways in which we're trying to reduce our consumption with emerging technologies including DeepSeek's relatively efficient models, companies like SynSense and their low-power neuromorphic chips, and Perth's Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre helping researchers optimise both time and energy usage.
We also heard about organisations developing ways to measure and report on sustainability with companies like Greenprint and VXC Global (not present at this conference) providing solutions for ESG tracking, insights, and action.
There's a competitive advantage in having lower consumption and lower cost compute as well as accurate reporting on impact. Practically speaking, it's attractive to investors and those savings could be fed back into the ecosystem to further develop more efficient solutions. But this is a double-edged sword because efficiencies won't slow the rate of development and use of these resource-intensive technologies which brings us back to ethical and responsible deployment considerations including asking if you really need to do it at all.
The future is about choice
All this technology gives us choices and the solutions hold the promise of being able to close the digital and financial divide, and related gaps, by providing more opportunities for people to be able to participate and engage in global digital and traditional economies and societies.
We are being given more options in how we manage our finances and opportunities to build wealth. Participation in investment activities is being democratised through real-world asset tokenisation and inclusive digital trade infrastructure supports micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) to grow their reach and can facilitate things like provenance tracing with potential for intellectual property (IP) protections.
As businesses or entrepreneurs, there's that choice from before about whether we need to build this high compute or high data solution at all and whether it really will be worth the return on investment in terms of financial, environmental, ethical, and social impact. Are you actually solving a problem or are you afraid of not being on trend? What impact will your solution have and what other problems will it create?
"What is your goal?"
— Toshio Suzuki (Producer, Co-Founder and Chairman of Studio Ghibli)
It's also about compromise
Compromise is also a choice with these technologies.
We, as consumers, are perfectly prepared to hold corporations accountable for their actions and their supply chain, but what about responsibility and accountability for our own? What compromises are we making with the services that we use in order to make our lives easier?
There is also compromise with how we manage our privacy and digital assets. We spoke about how it's not just traditional personal identifiable information (PII) we have to worry about now, because your digital assets include things like your activities online, the data you upload, and biometrics such as your voice-print, as well as likeness.
The adage goes "If you're not paying for the product, you are the product", but these days the line there is blurred as well. Have you considered the size of your digital footprint? What does it tell others about you and what value can they place on this information? How much control do you think you have over it and do you know what yours rights are, for that matter?
Taking the initiative to improve our digital literacy and tech hygiene, and taking control of our data and privacy in this technological climate is a choice that we all need to make for ourselves, but it doesn't mean we can't do things to help make those choices easier if we have the power to do so as part of an organisation or community.
The future is human-centred
There are those who say the humanities are soft, but it's those ethical and moral questions, and how people view social responsibility and impact that seem to challenge the most in these spaces.
How one judges fairness is dependent on the context. There is debate over how we trust and how much transparency is 'enough'. Morality is subjective yet there are situations where one may try to impose their sense of it on another. Not to mention the ethics of bringing an innovation into the world when we don't know the full scope of how it might be used because very few innovations are inherently good or evil — that alignment lies in the intent of the one wielding it. For every person who sees a way to positively advance society, there will be another who sees how to exploit it.
But it's not a zero-sum game. Whatever you believe about the singularity or where we're headed, it's all the more reason we should actually keep the human in the loop because STEM is ultimately for humans and humanity, so we need, and are empowered, to be more involved in the progression of our society.
"'Cause I'm one of the idiots that lives in it!"
— Peter Quill, Guardians of the Galaxy
I also recognise the privilege we have in being able to attend and participate in events like this. Not everyone has the luxury of time and capacity to engage in this way, but like the zero waste movement, there's greater impact in more people getting involved and able to take their learnings away to share and do a little bit than do nothing at all.
Stay curious,
— Michele