Co-Opting AI: Insurance will explore the entanglement of AI, the individualization of risk, and the insurance industry.

Laurence Barry (CREST-ENSAE/PARI) holds a PhD in political science and is a certified actuary who combines research with professional actuarial work. She currently co-leads a research program in France examining the mutual impact of climate change and insurance mechanisms. Her interests include neoliberalism, Foucaultian studies, the intertwining of specific rationalities with modern power, and the digital turn. More recently, she has focused on the government of disasters. Her articles have been published in the Journal of Business Ethics, Theory, Culture and Society, the Journal of Cultural Economy and the British Journal of Sociology. Her book, Foucault and Postmodern Conceptions of Reason, was published in 2020.

Jathan Sadowski is a senior lecturer and ARC Future Fellow in the Department of Human Centred-Computing at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. He studies the political economy of information technology and risk governance with a focus on the insurance industry. Jathan has authored two books on technology and capitalism: The Mechanic and the Luddite (UC Press, 2025) and Too Smart (MIT Press, 2020). He is also co-host of a weekly podcast on technology and political economy: This Machine Kills.

The event will be moderated by Mona Sloane and supported by NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge, Sloane Lab, and the Digital Technology for Democracy Lab at the University of Virginia.