Future of War series: Algorithmic Futures with Zena Assaad and Elizabeth Williams

Law and the Future of War

As part of our ‘futures’ mini-series, in this episode we are looking specifically at Algorithmic Futures, with hosts of the podcast of the same name: Dr Zena Assaad and Dr Elizabeth Williams, both from ANU. Today we are going to specifically focus on the breadth of the design and uncertainty problem for capabilities augmented by algorithms.

Elizabeth T. Williams is an Associate Professor in the School of Engineering at the Australian National University (ANU). She has a PhD in experimental nuclear structure from Yale University. Since joining the ANU in 2012, Liz has held an ARC DECRA Fellowship, mucked about with accelerators, code, and superheavy elements, and explored complexity in real-world technological systems. She also led the creation of the hands-on half of the Masters of Applied Cybernetics, convened the School of Cybernetics 2021 PhD cohort program, and will soon convene the newly created Nuclear Systems major and minor for the School of Engineering’s Bachelor of Engineering programs.
Zena Assaad is a senior research fellow within the School of Engineering at the Australian National University (ANU). Zena studied a Bachelor of Aerospace Engineering and completed a PhD exploring decision-making under uncertainty to support strategic air traffic flow management. Zena currently holds a fellowship position under the ethics uplift program with trusted autonomous systems, exploring human-machine teaming; and is also a fellow with the Australian Army Research Centre researching autonomy in swarms and human-machine teams.

Additional Resources:

• Algorithmic Futures - podcast by Zena Assaad and Liz Williams
• Klara and the Sun - K Ishaguro, 2021
• The Ironies of Automation - L Bainbridge, Automatica, Vol. 19, No. 6. pp. 775 779, 1983