An Expert Panel at The British Academy on December 18, 2024.

The evolving relationship between human agency and technology requires careful balancing of how AI systems may augment our capabilities with preserving transparency, accountability, and meaningful human agency guided by our values and social norms.

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The introduction of “AI agents” and “AI assistants”—systems that pursue goals with limited supervision on behalf of users and organizations—are a reminder of the profound questions about humanity and technology that remain. From social media to chatbots, today’s technologies already test the boundaries of social trust and accountability, and these new AI products may create new risks while intensifying existing concerns and harms. How can we ensure that increasingly autonomous AI systems, operating with reduced transparency and oversight, don't further erode these foundations of trust and accountability? As AI systems impact human rights, freedoms, and liberties, what are the implications of a future where AI agents and assistants might act on our behalf without our explicit awareness or consent? What futures can be imagined in which AI assistants genuinely benefit society, and if so, what social guardrails and political structures will be required to achieve this?

This expert panel brings together leaders from policy, research, industry and creative sectors to explore these crucial questions about AI's impact on society. The discussion will examine how the increasing delegation of human activities to automated systems affects social life and how we can use ethics, imagination, and policy to shape better, more viable futures.

This panel is presented in collaboration with the Science, Technology, and Social Values Lab at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, and the AI Policy and Governance Working Group, co-founded by Dorothy Chou and Alondra Nelson.

Speakers:

The Honourable Chi Onwurah

Chi Onwurah is the Labour MP for Newcastle upon Tyne Central. First elected to Parliament in 2010, she also serves as Chair of the House of Commons Science, Innovation, and Technology Council, where her strategic priorities include science and technology for growth, addressing underrepresented areas and untapped policies, and technology in the public interest. Trained as an electrical engineer, before becoming an MP, she worked in the technology industry, in hardware and software development, for twenty years and as a media regulator for Ofcom. She was formerly Labour Shadow Minister for Science, Research and Innovation.

Ms. Dorothy Chou

Dorothy Chou leads Policy & Public Engagement at Google DeepMind, an artificial intelligence company. She has spent her career building social justice, ethics, & accountability structures at technology companies, including the first Transparency Report – an industry standard that more than 70 technology companies use to show how laws and corporate policies affect free expression and privacy online. Prior to Google DeepMind, Dorothy was responsible for policy development at Uber on consumer protection, safety & self-driving cars. She also led corporate communications at Dropbox, and worked in communications and public policy for seven years at Google. Outside of work, she is working toward a Master’s in Bioethics at the University of Oxford, serves on the development board of the Young Vic, and is an angel investor with Atomico, a leading European venture capital firm.

Prof. John Tasioulas

John Tasioulas is Director of the Institute for Ethics in AI and Professor of Ethics and Legal Philosophy at the University of Oxford. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at Balliol College Oxford. He studied law and philosophy at the University of Melbourne and completed his doctorate as a Rhodes Scholar. He has published widely in the areas of moral philosophy, legal philosophy, political philosophy, and the philosophy of technology. Professor Tasioulas is a member of the Prime Minister of Greece’s High-Level Advisory Committee on AI and has acted as a consultant on human rights to the World Bank and served as a member of the International Advisory Board, Panel for the Future of Science and Technology (STOA), European Parliament.

Dr. Julian Bleecker

Julian Bleecker is an engineer, software developer, product designer, author, artist, researcher, and entrepreneur. He is founder of the Near Future Laboratory, a platform for creative and commercial work organized around the premise that imagination is our evolutionary advantage and needs to be brought back into active service for collaborations that can help us create more habitable near future worlds. Julian received a Ph.D. in History of Consciousness from the University of California at Santa Cruz where he studied and taught with Professors Donna Haraway and Angela Y. Davis. He originated the concept of design fiction in collaboration with the science-fiction author Bruce Sterling. His books include Design Fiction: A Short Essay on Design, Science, Fact and Fiction, It's Time To Imagine Harder, and The Manual of Design Fiction.

Chair:

Prof. Alondra Nelson

Alondra Nelson is the Harold F. Linder Professor at the Institute of Advanced Study, where she also founded and leads the Science, Technology, and Social Values Lab. She was deputy assistant to President Joe Biden and acting director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where she led the development of the “Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights,” a cornerstone of President Biden’s Executive Order on AI. Nature named Alondra to its global list of the 10 People Who Shaped Science and she was included in the inaugural TIME100 list of the most influential people in AI. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Council on Foreign Relations, she was appointed to the United Nations High-level Advisory Body on AI in 2023.

Free, booking required.

Event schedule:
Doors and bar open: 18:30
Event starts: 19:00
Event ends: 20:15