Fixing the Wrong Thing: Psychosocial Hazards and What to Do About Them

Talks on Tuesdays is a live event series bringing big ideas, real experts, and curious minds together - at your favourite local venues. Think thought-provoking lectures, audience questions, and post-talk mingling over drinks and dinner.

This isn’t a uni lecture. It’s a social, intelligent night out.Come alone or with friends, leave with something to talk about.

Event Schedule:

6.30pm Arrival & Doors Open

7pm Lecuture Starts

7.45pm Q&A

8pm Talk Concludes

8.30pm Event Closes.

*Please arrive close to 6.30pm

A La Carte menu and full bar available throughout the night - pay as you go.

Your Topic:

Countering Mis- and Disinformation Using Behavioural Science

We've all been there. You're sitting around the dinner table when someone confidently shares something you know can't be true but no matter how many facts you throw at them, they won't budge.

Misinformation (sharing false information unintentionally) and disinformation (deliberately spreading false information) have become some of the biggest challenges of the digital age. From health and politics to scams and social media, false information can spread faster than the truth and changing people's minds isn't as simple as presenting the evidence.

In this talk, discover how behavioural science helps us understand why people believe misinformation, why facts alone often fail, and the surprisingly effective strategies that can help counter false beliefs without turning every conversation into an argument.

Your Speaker:

Dr Peter Brace is an educator, philosopher, and researcher whose work sits at the heart of how humans think, learn, and adapt in an age of artificial intelligence. He teaches at Swinburne University across Critical Thinking and Intelligence, AI and cognition, and Criminology and Ethics, bringing a combination of cognitive science, moral philosophy, and practical application to some of the questions that matter most in today’s world.And as founder of PsychSafety Asia-Pacific, Peter works with organisations across Australia and the Asia-Pacific region on the human consequences of AI adoption, with a particular focus on what happens to learning, judgment, and meaning-making when machines begin to do our thinking for us. He is the author of Practical Psychological Safety in Asia-Pacific and has spent over four decades studying how people and institutions learn, grow, adapt, and sometimes fail to.Peter believes that large language models, to borrow Walt Whitman's words, contain multitudes, and carry with them the potential for both great harm and great benefit to human society. The work of education, he argues, is learning to tell the difference.