The Aarebrot Conversation 2026:  When Tech Giants and Autocrats Take Over the World 

In this year’s Aarebrot Conversation, an exceptional meeting of minds is on the agenda. Essayist, political scientist, and author of the critically acclaimed The Hour of the Predator, Giuliano da Empoli, and one of the world’s most respected tech journalists, Kara Swisher, meet on stage in Bergen to discuss one of the defining challenges of our time: How can we safeguard our democratic values when the rules of the game have changed, the media is being undermined, and power, money, and influence are concentrated in the hands of a few authoritarian stakeholders?

In The Hour of the Predator, da Empoli writes about how tech giants and autocrats determined to reshape the world order. He portrays dictators and tyrants, AI billionaires, geopolitical predators - and the desperate, failing leaders trying to appease them. As a former advisor to Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, da Empoli offers a unique insight from the innermost corridors of power. After years at the heart of high politics, he has described it as “10% The West Wing, 10% House of Cards, and 80% Veep”!

Kara Swisher, for her part, has covered Silicon Valley uncompromisingly for more than 30 years - and has met them all. As the consummate tech insider, she has documented how innovation gurus and tech billionaires such as Musk, Thiel, Zuckerberg, Bezos, and Altman have helped shape the rise and power of Donald Trump and the political right in the United States. Fearless and deeply informed, she has held tech giants, editors, and politicians accountable for the power and responsibility they wield. She consistently argues that tech companies have become too powerful to be guided by good intentions alone - they must be regulated as the power structures they truly are.

The stage is set for a remarkable exchange of ideas as two of the world’s sharpest minds tackle one of the most fundamental questions of our time: How do we defend democracy when all the rules have changed?