We are in a Great Acceleration—a singularity, not in the capital-S-Kurzwellian sense of robots rising up, but in the one Foucault described: A period of time where change is so widespread, and so fundamental, that one cannot properly discern what the other side of that change will be like.

In this talk, Data Universe chair Alistair Croll charts the course from traditional software to generative AI—software that makes stuff up. He'll discuss its rapid adoption, and some unintended and surprising consequences everyone should understand, exploring inexorable swings between centralized and decentralized architectures.