Who Controls the Future? — Carissa Véliz at the RSA
Oxford philosopher Carissa Véliz argues that prediction systems—from hiring algorithms to medical AI—are less about seeing the future than controlling it.
Why we picked this
Véliz wrote the definitive popular account of the privacy crisis in *Privacy Is Power* — this talk extends her argument into predictive AI, where the stakes are no longer about data but about who gets to define what happens next.
Carissa Véliz, Associate Professor at Oxford’s Faculty of Philosophy and the Institute for Ethics in AI, arrives at the RSA with a provocation that reframes the entire AI futures conversation: prediction has never been primarily about seeing what comes next — it has always been about controlling it. The systems that filter access to jobs, determine credit scores, triage medical treatment, and shape policing decisions are not neutral forecasting tools. They are instruments of power, and the question of who owns them is a political question masquerading as a technical one.
The argument traces a line from ancient oracles — whose authority derived precisely from the ambiguity of their pronouncements — to modern algorithmic decision-making, where the appearance of mathematical objectivity serves a similar function. When a hiring algorithm rejects a candidate or a predictive policing model flags a neighbourhood, the decision carries the weight of statistical authority. Véliz’s interest is in how that authority gets contested, and what it would actually mean to reclaim democratic control over systems that are reshaping the futures individuals can access.
Roger McNamee — tech investor, early Facebook advisor turned critic, and author of Zucked — chairs the discussion. His vantage point as both insider and dissenter gives the conversation an unusual texture: this is not a debate between a critic and a defender, but between two people who have concluded that something structural went wrong and are trying to think clearly about what follows from that. Doors at 6:00 PM, The Great Room at RSA House.