AI Ethics
Half of Queen Mary's undergraduates were the first in their family to go to university, it's embedded in London's diverse East End, and the university has a bold commitment to be the most inclusive university of its kind in the world. And it's also home to world-leading AI research. So we are uniquely positioned to ensure an inclusive debate on AI ethics.
In 2023, I knew we needed to be shouting loudly about Queen Mary’s AI research – and when the UK government announced its AI Safety Summit, I wanted to ensure Queen Mary was visible.
So I teamed up with our Professor of Ethics, Technology and Society David Leslie. Together with the events team, with not very much notice (thank you again events team!) we organised an one-day discussion forum as part of AI Fringe, in partnership with the APPG AI, the Turing Institute and Big Innovation Centre. It was a lively day bringing together a distinguished panel of 29 AI experts from all around the world – the room was packed in spite of storm Ciarán.
Our AI Fringe Event was so successful that we followed it up with a webinar on the risks and opportunities of AI, and an event to launch a special edition of the Harvard Data Science Review, 'Future Shock', with speakers including Yoshua Bengio, Rachel Coldicutt, Shmyla Khan and many more. And we're currently planning more.
It was also an early activation moment for the university’s wider AI campaign – which has supported outcomes including funding for new research on AI, Professor Leslie co-lauching UNESCO’s Global AI Ethics and Governance Observatory, Queen Mary's Digital Environmental Research Institute being made a member of the U.S. AI Safety Institute Consortium (AISIC), and now the Faculty of Science and Engineering hiring 30 permanent positions in AI, Machine Learning and Computer Science.