Disrupted: Panel Series

Disrupted is UNSW Engineering and Founders panel series where we dive headfirst into the fault lines of innovation and disruption.

March Edition of Disrupted: AI & Misinformation

You are being manipulated.

Not someday.
Not hypothetically.
Now.

AI is flooding our feeds with synthetic voices, fabricated images, manufactured outrage, and narratives engineered for maximum emotional impact.

Global leaders are sharing AI-generated content.
Elections are being shaped by bot networks.
Trending topics are no longer organic — they are orchestrated.

The uncomfortable truth?

Facts don’t win online.
Volume does.
Coordination does.
Emotion does.

This edition of Disrupted, presented by UNSW Faculty of Engineering and UNSW Founders and UNSW Institute for Cyber Security, confronts the reality of AI-driven misinformation head on — and asks the harder question:

If the information ecosystem is already compromised, what do we build next?

What we’ll expose

• How AI bots can simulate public opinion and swing elections
• Why subtle, credible-sounding misinformation is more dangerous than obvious lies
• How coordinated amplification games platform algorithms
• Why detection alone won’t save us
• And where founders have a responsibility — and an opportunity — to rebuild trust infrastructure

This isn’t a panel about whether misinformation is a problem.

It’s about how deep it goes.
How fast it’s accelerating.
And whether we have the courage to confront it.

Speakers

Dr Hammond Pearce

Senior Lecturer, UNSW | Creator of Capture the Narrative

Through Capture the Narrative, a national cyber security competition, students built AI bots that infiltrated a simulated social network and influenced a fictional election.

His work reveals how easily digital consensus can be manufactured — and why awareness may be our first and last line of defence.

Dr Jiaojiao Jiang

Senior Lecturer, School of Computer Science & Engineering, UNSW

Dr Jiaojiao Jiang is an expert in AI for Cybersecurity

Her research focuses on:

• Detecting misinformation in complex online networks
• Modelling how false narratives spread
• Identifying the source of coordinated influence campaigns
• Cyber threat intelligence

While generative AI makes misinformation cheaper and faster to produce, Dr Jiang’s work explores how AI can also be used to detect, trace, and disrupt it.

If misinformation is the attack, her research is part of the defence.

Why this matters for entrepreneurs

If you’re a founder, technologist, researcher, policymaker, or simply someone who cares about the future of democracy and digital society — this conversation is for you!