Name: ABQ.Dialogues #7 Digital Dementia & Confabulation
Start: 2026-04-23T18:00:00.000+03:00
End: 2026-04-23T21:00:00.000+03:00
Location: FABER

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ABQ.Dialogues #7/10 Digital Dementia & Confabulation

When convenience rewires cognition, and intelligence stops being entirely our own.

We live in an age of unprecedented cognitive outsourcing. Memory is offloaded to devices. Attention is harvested by platforms. Meaning is increasingly mediated by feeds, algorithms, and now AI systems that can generate fluent nonsense with total confidence.

What begins as convenience can end as dependency.

, we open a necessary conversation about the psychological, developmental, social, and civic costs of digital life. This is not a nostalgic critique of technology. It is a serious exploration of what happens when human beings, families, schools, and communities are immersed in systems designed to capture attention, optimize engagement, and increasingly shape perception itself.

“Digital dementia” names the erosion of memory, focus, reflection, and cognitive autonomy in an always-on environment. “Confabulation” points to another emerging risk: the normalization of false coherence — from AI hallucinations to algorithmically amplified distortions, from shallow certainty to collective confusion.

This session is about how digital life is changing not only what we do, but how we think, relate, learn, trust, and raise the next generation.

Why now: the cognitive and social cost of permanent connection

The digital era has delivered extraordinary access, speed, and coordination. But it has also introduced a new layer of fragility into everyday life.

We are seeing the rise of a culture shaped by:

This is no longer only a technology issue. It is a health issue, an education issue, a parenting issue, a community issue, and ultimately a societal issue.

The real question is not whether digital systems are powerful. It is whether we still have the cultural, cognitive, and ethical capacity to remain humanly in command of them.

If we continue to optimize for speed, stimulation, convenience, and synthetic intelligence, what happens to memory, discernment, patience, human presence, and the ability to live meaningfully together?

This dialogue is not about rejecting technology. It is about recovering agency.

Because if we do not consciously shape our digital environment, it will shape us by default.

And the deeper risk is not only that machines become more intelligent.

It is that humans become less attentive, less grounded, less relational, and less capable of distinguishing what is real.

 and help us examine one of the defining tensions of our time: how to benefit from digital progress without sacrificing cognition, sanity, education, and community in the process.

Ask and upvote questions to help shape the speakers’ focus.

The ABQ Dialogues are a human-centric conversation series where diverse voices explore how emerging technologies reshape the fundamental aspects of our lived experience and collective future.

The Dialogues follow ABQ’s main pillars: education, entrepreneurship, and societal impact by bringing together diverse professional voices in a progressive learning journey. We aim to highlight technology’s impact, creating deeper understanding of how AI, Blockchain, Bio-engineering, and Quantum Computing are reshaping our world.

The Dialogues prioritize how these innovations impact the most fundamental aspects of human experience. From healthcare systems and longevity to artistic expression, psychological well-being, social connections, and community faith structures, we explore both current changes and future implications for how we live, work, create, and find meaning. The Dialogues prioritize people over technology, ensuring that human values and needs guide our collective understanding of technological transformation.

We propose a monthly conversation series that creates space for dialogue between experts and the public. Each session combines expert presentations with interactive questions and answers, open discussions, and networking opportunities that promote community connections. We believe this format encourages inclusive participation, amplifying voices from multiple sectors and backgrounds while building knowledge progressively across the series.

Our goal is to generate practical insights that serve individuals navigating technological change, community leaders shaping local responses, and organizations implementing new technologies.

After each dialogue, we publish findings for public access, followed by a written article and audio version on our Substack, with human review and refinement from contributors and panelists.

ABQ.Dialogues are a 10-part monthly event series, with 3-hour sessions divided between expert conversations, public interventions, and networking.