Distorted - An evening with Seb Butcher - Gower Street

Join us for an evening with technology lawyer and political commentator Seb Butcher discussing his new book, Distorted.
About this Event

Join us for an evening with technology lawyer and political commentator Seb Butcher discussing his powerful warning about what he coins as the new UPF of the 21st century. Distorted considers the new world we live in where we are snacking on low-grade and synthetic content and how this is shaping who we are becoming as a society on and offline.

The online world is shaping how we think, how we treat each other, and ultimately, who we are. The diet we consume is one of rage bait, AI slop, and mistruths designed to capture our attention, affecting how we vote, what (and who) we believe and how we perceive reality. Butcher examines how differences of feeds, algorithms and online realities is ultimately causing us to splinter into separate worlds altogether.

Distorted is not a call to abandon technology or an attempt to rewind the clock. Rather it is a timely acknowledgment that the mind is more fragile and vulnerable to bias than we like to admit, and therefore we must start regulating our information ecosystem to avoid the wide-ranging political, social and personal costs.

Butcher calls for clearer conversations about the world we will leave to future generations, and for greater honesty about our addiction to digital devices and separate online realities. Hopeful, rigorous and deeply human, Distorted offers a thoughtful and practical path toward rebuilding trusted institutions, harnessing AI, and finding common ground in an increasingly splintered world.