The Faculty of Social and Political Sciences (FISIPOL) at Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM), in partnership with the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne, will host the fifth conference in the Australia–Indonesia in Conversation (AIC) series. The event, titled “Is AI the Game-Changer? Intelligence Unbound: Ethics, Power, and the Imagination of Life in the Digital Age,” will feature two panel discussions conducted in one-day sessions. The conference will be held in a hybrid format, both onsite at the FISIPOL UGM campus in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and online, on 20 July 2026.
BACKGROUND
The rise of artificial intelligence has placed humanity at an inflection point where technological systems increasingly participate in decision-making, creativity, and cultural formation. As intelligence becomes unbound from its human origins, societies are compelled to confront profound questions about ethics, power, and imagination in the digital age.
Intelligence Unbound captures this critical moment: a point where human cognition, political systems, and creative processes intersect with autonomous technologies that both expand and challenge our understanding of knowledge and responsibility. Yet one enduring question persists: Is AI truly the game-changer, or does it simply reveal the deeper dynamics of change within human societies?
This year’s Australia–Indonesia in Conversation (AIC) 2026 is jointly convened by the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences (FISIPOL), Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) and the University of Melbourne, reaffirming both institutions’ commitment to collaborative reflection on democracy, diversity, and the digital condition.
Through a series of interdisciplinary panels, the conversation explores how AI reshapes ethics, governance, and creativity, and what this means for the futures we imagine together.
PANEL DISCUSSIONS:
- Panel 1: Governing Intelligence: Ethics, Power, and the Politics of Knowing
Panel 2: Sustaining Imagination: Eco-Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Ethics of Intelligent Futures