We are often told that trust is dead, or dying today. That is wrong. Certainly, trust in authority figures and institutions has crumbled in recent years. However, trust in our peer groups, expressed via digital networks, is often surprisingly strong — at least when you look at this as a cultural anthropologist, i.e., explore how people actually behave, not what they say. Moreover, the rise of AI is reinforcing this migration of trust, creating what might be called Trust 4.0. This will sound scary to some, and it does pose big dangers, but also advantages. In this lecture, journalist Gillian Tett will explore the potential pitfalls in this new landscape of trust, as well as the reasons to hope that the rise of AI might deliver unexpected benefits too. Indeed, experiments are already underway to test how AI might (sometimes) be a force for good.
Gillian Tett is a columnist and member of the editorial board for the Financial Times. She writes a weekly column on Friday, covering a range of economic, financial, political, and social issues. She also serves as Provost of King's College, Cambridge. Previously, she chaired the FT editorial board, ran Moral Money (the FT's sustainability newsletter, which she co-founded), and wrote two columns a week. Gillian's earlier roles with the FT included U.S. managing editor, assistant editor, capital markets editor, deputy editor of the Lex column, Tokyo bureau chief, and reporter in Russia and Brussels.
She has been named Columnist of the Year (2014), Journalist of the Year (2009) and Business Journalist of the Year (2008) in the British Press Awards. In the U.S., she has received three awards from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing. She is a best-selling and award-winning author of four books, and received the Royal Anthropological Institute Marsh Award and the American Anthropological Association President Medal for her work in social science. She has received honorary degrees from Carnegie Mellon, Miami University, and Baruch College in the U.S., and Exeter, Lancaster, Goldsmith's, London in the U.K.
Reserve your free tickets to this event via the Lensic Performing Arts Center's box office. This discussion will also be streamed live via SFI's YouTube channel, and recorded for future viewing.
The 2025 Santa Fe Institute Community Lecture Series is free to attend thanks to generous sponsorship by the McKinnon Family Foundation, with additional support from the Santa Fe Reporter, and the Lensic Performing Arts Center.