AI Ethics Now

Tom Ritchie, IATL, WIHEA, University of Warwick

AI Ethics Now is a podcast dedicated to exploring the complex issues surrounding artificial intelligence from a non-specialist perspective, including bias, ethics, privacy, and accountability. Join us as we discuss the challenges and opportunities of AI and work towards a future where technology benefits society as a whole.

This podcast idea was first developed by Dr Tom Ritchie and Dr Jennie Mills as part of The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology, and Society module, taught as part of IATL at the University of Warwick.

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Yesterday · 21 min
7. AI & Us: A Musical Journey Through Human Identity in the Age of AI
A camera isn't the photographer. So what is AI, when it's the tool behind the art? In this episode, I speak with Glenn Stockton, a retired entrepreneur, photographer, and grandfather of ten who has lived through every major digital shift of the last 45 years, from early Macintosh computers to launching one of the first internet businesses in 1997. Glenn is the creator of AI and Us, a five-song musical journey exploring AI consciousness, creativity, digital companionship, conflict, and what it means to stay human in the age of intelligent machines. He comes to AI ethics not as a technologist but as a songwriter interested in what this moment reveals about truth, relationship, and what makes us human. Rather than a standard interview, this episode moves through the arc song by song, weaving in clips from each track as the conversation unfolds. Glenn argues that the deepest questions AI raises aren't technical but human: what happens to truth, to relationships, to art and creativity, to faith. The arc moves from possibility ("Another Way to Speak," on AI as a new language for human expression) through connection and its dangers ("One Song," on unity without uniformity) to deception ("Counterfeit Light," on content that convinces by resembling truth rather than by force) and responsibility ("The Danger Was Not Born in Code," locating AI's risks in the human flaws it amplifies, not in the technology itself), before closing with "Stay Human," a song Glenn's wife Laurie unexpectedly reframed as a love song, on preserving human relationship at the centre of an AI-driven world. The conversation also explores the tension, or lack of it, in using AI tools (ChatGPT, Suno, ElevenLabs, Descript, and Kling) to create work that is itself about AI's dangers and responsibilities. Drawing a line between AI as instrument and AI as author, Glenn makes the case that AI was not the storyteller for this project, only the tool that let him tell it. He closes with reflections on what it will take to build a more positive AI future: ethics taught alongside literacy, honest labelling of synthetic media, and above all, human wisdom keeping pace with human capability. Essential listening for anyone thinking about creativity, authenticity, or what it means to stay human at a moment when so much is being automated. You can listen to the full AI and Us song series at CosmicBackyard.com, under the AI & Us menu link. AI Ethics Now Exploring the ethical dilemmas of AI in Higher Education and beyond. A University of Warwick IATL Podcast This podcast series was developed by Dr Tom Ritchie, module lead of ⁠⁠⁠The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology and Society⁠⁠⁠ at the University of Warwick and Elon University. The ⁠ module explores the history, current state, and potential futures of artificial intelligence, examining its profound impact on society, individuals, and the very definition of 'humanness.' This podcast was initially designed to provide a deeper dive into the key themes explored each week in class. We want to share the discussions we have had to help offer a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence to a wider audience. Join each fortnight for new critical conversations on AI Ethics with local, national, and international experts. We will discuss: Ethical Dimensions of AI: Fairness, bias, transparency, and accountability Societal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanity The Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanity If you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk
S3 · E6
September 6 · 41 min
6. AI and Hope: Rewiring Universities for Human Flourishing
What is AI actually revealing about us as humans? And what would it mean to build institutions that help us become more human, not less? In this episode, I speak with Dr Jessica Riddell, Professor of Early Modern Literature at Bishop's University, Quebec, where she holds the Stephen A. Jarislowsky Chair of Undergraduate Teaching Excellence. Jessica is the founder of the Hope Circuits Institute and author of Hope Circuits: Rewiring Universities and Other Systems for Human Flourishing, as well as co-author of Shakespeare's Guide to Life, Hope and Learning. She comes to AI ethics not as a technologist but as a Shakespeare scholar interested in what this moment reveals about hope, integrity, and human flourishing. Jessica argues that AI hasn't caused higher education's integrity gaps so much as exposed them, from the instant leap to surveillance and policing when ChatGPT arrived, to decades of running universities on "machine logic": optimisation, metrics, and efficiency at the expense of purpose. She makes the case for treating institutions as ecosystems rather than machines, and for protecting "deliberate inefficiencies," friction, bewilderment, productive struggle, as a superpower rather than a flaw. The conversation also builds on Jessica's session ("Writing as Excavation: Teaching Writing With and Not Against Gen AI") at the Transatlantic Teaching Exchange Series I ran as part of my Fulbright Exchange. In this discussion, she walks through a classroom exercise where students wrote messy, handwritten thoughts each week, then fed their own writing into AI to surface patterns in how their thinking had developed. The result was a "warped mirror," useful, but also a reminder of what AI flattens out. Drawing on her friend Paul Yachnin's idea that theatre is the original LLM, but the opposite of AI because it stages questions without resolving them, Jessica makes the case for hope as a discipline, not optimism, and for building universities as "rehearsal spaces for creative futures" rather than futureproofing against an imagined threat. Essential listening for anyone thinking about institutional purpose, academic integrity, or what it means to stay human at a moment when so much is being automated. AI Ethics Now Exploring the ethical dilemmas of AI in Higher Education and beyond. A University of Warwick IATL Podcast This podcast series was developed by Dr Tom Ritchie and Dr Jennie Mills, the module leads of ⁠⁠The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology and Society⁠⁠ at the University of Warwick. The ⁠ module explores the history, current state, and potential futures of artificial intelligence, examining its profound impact on society, individuals, and the very definition of 'humanness.' This podcast was initially designed to provide a deeper dive into the key themes explored each week in class. We want to share the discussions we have had to help offer a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence to a wider audience. Join each fortnight for new critical conversations on AI Ethics with local, national, and international experts. We will discuss: Ethical Dimensions of AI: Fairness, bias, transparency, and accountability Societal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanity The Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanity If you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk
S3 · E5
August 23 · 23 min
5. AI and Accountability: When Does a Suggestion Become a Decision?
What happens when a machine's output looks more certain than the evidence behind it? Where does responsibility sit when an AI flags a decision that nobody actually signed off on? And can a company built around one founder's neurodivergent thinking scale into something an institution like the NHS can trust? In this episode, I speak with Varun Sharma, Founder of NEUVIOR. Varun built the company after his own ADHD diagnosis, structuring it deliberately around neurodivergent cognition. His flagship product, PHARMORIS, is a governed medicines action layer that helps health systems identify, assess, and document opportunities relating to medicine cost, supply, and implementation. NEUVIOR received a total of four public innovation awards within its first 10 months, across Scottish Enterprise and Innovate UK. We discuss why false confidence, not error, is the real ethical risk of AI in healthcare; the difference between an AI-assisted draft and a final clinical or financial judgment; why accountability must remain with identifiable human decision-makers and institutions; how medicine disruption and supply bottlenecks hit some patients harder than others; why neurodivergent hyperfocus can be a powerful insight engine but not a governance system; what it actually takes to get AI adopted by risk-averse buyers like the NHS; and why automation without domain intimacy is just speed without judgment. AI Ethics Now Exploring the ethical dilemmas of AI in Higher Education and beyond. A University of Warwick IATL Podcast This podcast series was developed by Dr Tom Ritchie and Dr Jennie Mills, the module leads of ⁠The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology and Society⁠ at the University of Warwick. The ⁠ module explores the history, current state, and potential futures of artificial intelligence, examining its profound impact on society, individuals, and the very definition of 'humanness.' This podcast was initially designed to provide a deeper dive into the key themes explored each week in class. We want to share the discussions we have had to help offer a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence to a wider audience. Join each fortnight for new critical conversations on AI Ethics with local, national, and international experts. We will discuss: Ethical Dimensions of AI: Fairness, bias, transparency, and accountability Societal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanity The Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanity If you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk
S3 · E4
July 26 · 21 min
4. AI and Healthcare: Who's Actually Accountable When It Fails?
Where does accountability actually land when an AI system causes harm in a healthcare setting? And is the EU AI Act the compliance headache many organisations fear, or just common sense engineering practice by another name? In this episode, I speak with Antonina Burlachenko, Head of Quality and Regulatory Consulting at STAR, who works directly with healthcare, medtech, and AI product teams navigating regulated AI deployment across Europe and the US. Antonina argues that accountability for AI harm too often lands on doctors and healthcare facilities rather than the companies who built the technology, and that the regulatory framework simply hasn't caught up with how fast the technology moves. She pushes back on the idea that compliance is a documentation exercise, insisting instead that good compliance is just good engineering practice, organised. I press her on where explainability genuinely breaks down in practice, and whether the divide that matters is really startups versus enterprise, or responsible versus reckless development on both sides. We also discuss why many high-risk AI companies don't yet realise they're subject to regulation at all, the risk of over-reliance on plausible-sounding GenAI outputs, the need to preserve human judgement alongside machine prediction, and what it would take for industry, regulators, and universities to actually build AI governance together rather than in isolated. AI Ethics Now Exploring the ethical dilemmas of AI in Higher Education and beyond. A University of Warwick IATL Podcast This podcast series was developed by Dr Tom Ritchie and Dr Jennie Mills, the module leads of The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology and Society at the University of Warwick. The ⁠ module explores the history, current state, and potential futures of artificial intelligence, examining its profound impact on society, individuals, and the very definition of 'humanness.' This podcast was initially designed to provide a deeper dive into the key themes explored each week in class. We want to share the discussions we have had to help offer a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence to a wider audience. Join each fortnight for new critical conversations on AI Ethics with local, national, and international experts. We will discuss: Ethical Dimensions of AI: Fairness, bias, transparency, and accountability Societal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanity The Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanity If you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk
S3 · E3
June 28 · 16 min
3. AI and Access: The Words That Include and the Words That Don't
What happens when a chatbot speaks to you in a way you simply can't relate to? Can language that is designed to help actually exclude the very people who need support most? And when a machine sounds human, what do we lose when it can't behave like one? In this episode, I speak with Dr Doris Dippold from the University of Surrey, whose research examines how we design for rapport between humans and machines, particularly in sensitive healthcare contexts. Her work on a cervical screening booking chatbot reveals how linguistic cues can make or break users' experiences, influencing whether they engage with the technology and the services it provides. We discuss the concept of rapport in human-AI interaction and why it is always simulated; why chatbots designed to feel human-like raise expectations they often cannot meet; how language designed to nudge users can instead feel disrespectful and undermine autonomy; the way language ideology bias in conversational AI reflects the assumptions of developers rather than the needs of users; why current training data tends to represent standard written English while real users talk in far more varied ways; the case for emotional access as a dimension of digital inclusion alongside physical and cognitive accessibility; and why interpretive, human-led evaluation methods need to sit alongside computational metrics in AI development. AI Ethics Now Exploring the ethical dilemmas of AI in Higher Education and beyond. A University of Warwick IATL Podcast This podcast series was developed by Dr Tom Ritchie and Dr Jennie Mills, the module leads of the ⁠ at the University of Warwick. The ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠IATL module ⁠"The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology, and Society"⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ module explores the history, current state, and potential futures of artificial intelligence, examining its profound impact on society, individuals, and the very definition of 'humanness.' This podcast was initially designed to provide a deeper dive into the key themes explored each week in class. We want to share the discussions we have had to help offer a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence to a wider audience. Join each fortnight for new critical conversations on AI Ethics with local, national, and international experts. We will discuss: Ethical Dimensions of AI: Fairness, bias, transparency, and accountability Societal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanity The Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanity If you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk.
S3 · E2
June 15 · 22 min
2. AI and Youth: Growing Up Inside the Machine
Who is speaking for the generation that never knew a world without AI? What does it mean to form your identity, your creativity, and your sense of self inside systems designed to keep you engaged? And why are the people most affected by AI the ones least consulted about it. Season 3, Episode 2 features Nikhil Gujral, a 15-year-old Bay Area high school student who recently addressed researchers and policymakers at UNESCO in Paris on AI and the rights of children. Nikhil works with the AI Collective, everyone.AI, CoGenerate, and iRAISE on meaningful youth inclusion in AI design. Nikhil argues that young people are not future users to be considered later, but they are current users, already shaped by these systems during their most formative years. He challenges the idea that efficiency is the main risk, pointing instead to over-reliance, the erosion of original thinking, and the quiet normalisation of AI as emotional support. I push back on what meaningful inclusion actually looks like and whether a seat on a panel is anywhere near enough. We also discuss the gap between learning to prompt ChatGPT and understanding what it is actually doing to you, why existing ethical frameworks keep missing young people, and what it would take to build AI governance that starts with the people growing up inside it. AI Ethics Now Exploring the ethical dilemmas of AI in Higher Education and beyond. A University of Warwick IATL Podcast This podcast series was developed by Dr Tom Ritchie and Dr Jennie Mills, the module leads of the ⁠ at the University of Warwick. The ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠IATL module ⁠"The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology, and Society"⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ module explores the history, current state, and potential futures of artificial intelligence, examining its profound impact on society, individuals, and the very definition of 'humanness.' This podcast was initially designed to provide a deeper dive into the key themes explored each week in class. We want to share the discussions we have had to help offer a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence to a wider audience. Join each fortnight for new critical conversations on AI Ethics with local, national, and international experts. We will discuss: Ethical Dimensions of AI: Fairness, bias, transparency, and accountability Societal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanity The Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanity If you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk.
S3 · E1
June 1 · 28 min
1. AI and Originality: The End of Excuses
Is AI killing creative originality or finally exposing the people who never had any? What happens when the barriers to making something disappear entirely? And if anyone can generate content, what does it mean to actually have something to say? Season 3 of AI Ethics Now opens with Billy Boman, AI director, founder of Billy Boman AI Productions, and educator on Europe's only dedicated creative AI programme. Billy has directed high-profile campaigns for Fiverr and music videos for artists including Taylor Swift, Lewis Capaldi, and Fred Durst. He doesn't theorise about AI and creativity. He does it, every day, at commercial scale. This is not a comfortable conversation. Billy challenges the idea that AI is democratising creativity, arguing instead that it removes barriers to entry, which is a very different thing. He makes the case that most people aren't storytellers, that the race to resist AI training data is already over, and that the real ethical question isn't what AI is trained on but what you do with it. Tom pushes back on consent, on the freelance workforce, on who gets left behind. They also discuss the FAIR framework for responsible prompting, why guardrails on IP are actually good for originality, and what it means to build a studio practice that is both creatively ambitious and legally compliant. AI Ethics Now Exploring the ethical dilemmas of AI in Higher Education and beyond. A University of Warwick IATL Podcast This podcast series was developed by Dr Tom Ritchie and Dr Jennie Mills, the module leads of the ⁠ at the University of Warwick. The ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠IATL module ⁠"The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology, and Society"⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ module explores the history, current state, and potential futures of artificial intelligence, examining its profound impact on society, individuals, and the very definition of 'humanness.' This podcast was initially designed to provide a deeper dive into the key themes explored each week in class. We want to share the discussions we have had to help offer a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence to a wider audience. Join each fortnight for new critical conversations on AI Ethics with local, national, and international experts. We will discuss: Ethical Dimensions of AI: Fairness, bias, transparency, and accountability Societal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanity The Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanity If you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk.
S2 · E20
May 6 · 28 min
20. AI and Grief: When Death Becomes a Business Model
Content note: This episode contains discussion of bereavement, pregnancy loss, and references to suicide. Please take care when listening. What happens when grief becomes a product? When the people we've lost are turned into data? And who are AI resurrection services really designed to serve - the bereaved, or the bottom line? In this episode, Alfrun Rose, writer, performer, and the creative force behind Dead Air, a darkly comic solo show that has been turning heads since its acclaimed run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and is now playing at Greenwich Theatre, London, 13 to 16 May 2026, joins the podcast to explore what happens when death becomes a business model. Inspired by her own experience of losing her father, Alfrun describes how she fell into researching real-world AI tools that claim to keep the conversation going after death. Dead Air is the result, not just theatre, but a timely interrogation of who these tools are really serving, and at what cost to people processing grief. We discuss the predatory marketing of AI grief services, the dangers of sycophantic design, what "temperature control" reveals about the illusion of connection, the thin line between therapeutic tool and exploitative product, and why Alfrun made the deliberate choice to create a show about AI without using any AI at all. AI Ethics Now Exploring the ethical dilemmas of AI in Higher Education and beyond. A University of Warwick IATL Podcast This podcast series was developed by Dr Tom Ritchie and Dr Jennie Mills, the module leads of the ⁠ at the University of Warwick. The ⁠⁠⁠⁠IATL module ⁠"The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology, and Society"⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ module explores the history, current state, and potential futures of artificial intelligence, examining its profound impact on society, individuals, and the very definition of 'humanness.' This podcast was initially designed to provide a deeper dive into the key themes explored each week in class. We want to share the discussions we have had to help offer a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence to a wider audience. Join each fortnight for new critical conversations on AI Ethics with local, national, and international experts. We will discuss: Ethical Dimensions of AI: Fairness, bias, transparency, and accountability Societal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanity The Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanity If you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk.
S2 · E19
April 26 · 23 min
19. AI and Inclusive Clinical Education: Levelling the Playing Field or Reinforcing the Bias?
Can generative AI help create fairer healthcare training, or will it simply amplify the inequities already baked into clinical education? And what happens when the shortcuts we reach for in curriculum development undo years of hard-won progress on inclusive practice? In this episode, Ban Haider and Saskia Walker, both senior lecturers at City St George's, University of London, discuss their work examining generative AI in clinical education through the lens of EDI and inclusive practice. Ban brings a critical perspective rooted in concerns about bias and representation, while Saskia brings an optimistic one, shaped in part by her own experience as a dyslexic academic who saw AI's levelling potential from the start. Together, they make a compelling case for why the inclusion conversation needs to be at the centre of how healthcare educators adopt AI, not bolted on afterwards. They discuss using AI to generate diverse patient vignettes, the risk of stereotypical outputs when prompts aren't carefully constructed, awarding gaps, neurodivergence and academic anxiety, the danger of AI models being trained on AI-generated content, and why university policies around AI use need to catch up with the reality of how people actually work and learn. AI Ethics Now Exploring the ethical dilemmas of AI in Higher Education and beyond. A University of Warwick IATL Podcast This podcast series was developed by Dr Tom Ritchie and Dr Jennie Mills, the module leads of the ⁠ at the University of Warwick. The ⁠⁠⁠IATL module ⁠"The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology, and Society"⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ module explores the history, current state, and potential futures of artificial intelligence, examining its profound impact on society, individuals, and the very definition of 'humanness.' This podcast was initially designed to provide a deeper dive into the key themes explored each week in class. We want to share the discussions we have had to help offer a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence to a wider audience. Join each fortnight for new critical conversations on AI Ethics with local, national, and international experts. We will discuss: Ethical Dimensions of AI: Fairness, bias, transparency, and accountability Societal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanity The Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanity If you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk.
S2 · E18
April 12 · 33 min
18. AI and Co-Intelligence: Beyond Prompts to Critical Partnership
Is the biggest danger of AI not the technology itself, but how unreflectively we use it? And what does it actually mean to be the "human in the loop" when that concept remains frustratingly vague? Valentina Vlasova and Dr Kevin Coffey, senior lecturers at OMNES Education London, discuss the Co-Intelligence and AI Literacy module they designed after witnessing widespread unreflective AI use among their students. Drawing on Ethan Mollick's Co-Intelligence and the concept of co-thinking introduced by AI Swiss in 2025, they've built a course that goes far beyond prompt engineering to ask deeper questions about how humans and AI can genuinely collaborate. Valentina and Kevin share how they teach students to identify cultural, linguistic, and gender biases in AI outputs, including a classroom exercise that reveals how ChatGPT categorises ambition and management as male, and home and childcare as female. They discuss why bias in AI doesn't just reflect the world as it is, but amplifies it, creating a vicious cycle that's difficult to break. We explore the concept of embodied intelligence (what humans bring that AI fundamentally cannot) and why AI's inability to say "I don't know" matters more than students initially realise. Kevin and Valentina also reflect on what hasn't worked in the classroom, including how ChatGPT's failure to recognise mental health crisis language had real-world consequences before OpenAI intervened. With 70-80% of their students believing AI will replace their chosen career, this episode is essential listening for anyone thinking about how to prepare the next generation not just to use AI, but to lead it. AI Ethics Now Exploring the ethical dilemmas of AI in Higher Education and beyond. A University of Warwick IATL Podcast This podcast series was developed by Dr Tom Ritchie and Dr Jennie Mills, the module leads of the ⁠ at the University of Warwick. The ⁠⁠IATL module ⁠"The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology, and Society"⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ module explores the history, current state, and potential futures of artificial intelligence, examining its profound impact on society, individuals, and the very definition of 'humanness.' This podcast was initially designed to provide a deeper dive into the key themes explored each week in class. We want to share the discussions we have had to help offer a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence to a wider audience. Join each fortnight for new critical conversations on AI Ethics with local, national, and international experts. We will discuss: Ethical Dimensions of AI: Fairness, bias, transparency, and accountability Societal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanity The Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanity If you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk.
S2 · E17
March 29 · 26 min
17. AI and Amplification: Beyond Automation to Human-Centred Progress
Is AI destined to replace us, or can it help us thrive? And why are we still stuck in the "wow" phase when we should be asking harder questions about implementation? Dr Bryan Reimer, research scientist at the MIT Age Lab and co-author of How to Make AI Useful: Moving Beyond the Hype to Real Progress in Business, Society and Life, discusses AI's journey from "wow" to "woah" to "grow", and why most organizations haven't moved past excitement about automation. Bryan argues the real value of AI isn't replacing human capability through automation, but augmenting it through amplification. The question isn't "what can AI automate?" but "how can AI make humans better at what they do?" We discuss AI as doer, assistant, and creator, and why the creator role raises the most ethical concerns right now. When machines generate new information, who owns it? Is machine-assisted design copyrightable? AI doesn't invent – it regresses to the mean – so it's "new, but not new." Bryan shares why AI as assistant is where the real success lies: it leaves ethical responsibility with humans while providing cognitive support. Students aren't just using ChatGPT to write essays, they're using it as an electronic tutor to understand material that wasn't explained clearly in lectures. Education needs to shift from banning AI to teaching both AI-amplified work and fundamental skills. We explore why "success is toxic" for established organizations struggling with AI adoption, why small start-ups can leapfrog traditional leaders, and how lead adopters are flying so fast that laggard may never catch up. Leadership before modern AI will be fundamentally different from leadership going forward. Bryan introduces "cathedral thinking" versus "strip mining" in how we need to build AI systems designed to last decades, not just solve today's problems. AI won't automate away the things we love doing: creativity, art, poetry, music. The goal is amplifying human creativity, not replacing it. Essential listening for anyone navigating AI adoption, wondering whether job loss predictions are overstated, or trying to understand how to make AI actually useful rather than just impressive. AI Ethics Now Exploring the ethical dilemmas of AI in Higher Education and beyond. A University of Warwick IATL Podcast This podcast series was developed by Dr Tom Ritchie and Dr Jennie Mills, the module leads of the ⁠ at the University of Warwick. The ⁠IATL module ⁠"The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology, and Society"⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ module explores the history, current state, and potential futures of artificial intelligence, examining its profound impact on society, individuals, and the very definition of 'humanness.' This podcast was initially designed to provide a deeper dive into the key themes explored each week in class. We want to share the discussions we have had to help offer a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence to a wider audience. Join each fortnight for new critical conversations on AI Ethics with local, national, and international experts. We will discuss: Ethical Dimensions of AI: Fairness, bias, transparency, and accountability Societal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanity The Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanity If you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk.
S2 · E16
March 16 · 27 min
16. AI and Evidence: When Nobody is Accountable
What happens when AI is used to analyse human behaviour and relationships, and the output is treated as reliable evidence in a formal process against another person? Dr Craig Webber, School Lead for the MA in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Southampton, joins the podcast to explore a growing and largely unaddressed risk at the intersection of AI and institutional decision making. Craig introduces a concept with profound implications for anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of a formal process - the confident confabulation. Large language models don't flag uncertainty. They don't interrogate the premise of the question they're asked. They reflect back whatever narrative they're fed, dressed in language that carries the appearance of authority and expertise. The result can be devastating. And the frameworks for accountability when it goes wrong are, at best, underdeveloped. This conversation explores how sycophantic AI reflects back and amplifies the narratives it receives, how AI generated analysis gets laundered into apparently human authored reports, and what it means when confident confabulations enter high stakes processes where people's lives and reputations are at stake. Craig returns throughout to two words. Legitimacy - does the process that produced this output have any genuine claim to being a reliable account of what actually happened? And accountability - when a confident confabulation causes real harm to a real person, who answers for that? Not the AI. Not the platform. Not the person who fed it the narrative and accepted what it reflected back without question. Currently, the answer is nobody. AI Ethics Now Exploring the ethical dilemmas of AI in Higher Education and beyond. A University of Warwick IATL Podcast This podcast series was developed by Dr Tom Ritchie and Dr Jennie Mills, the module leads of the ⁠ at the University of Warwick. The IATL module ⁠"The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology, and Society"⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ module explores the history, current state, and potential futures of artificial intelligence, examining its profound impact on society, individuals, and the very definition of 'humanness.' This podcast was initially designed to provide a deeper dive into the key themes explored each week in class. We want to share the discussions we have had to help offer a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence to a wider audience. Join each fortnight for new critical conversations on AI Ethics with local, national, and international experts. We will discuss: Ethical Dimensions of AI: Fairness, bias, transparency, and accountability Societal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanity The Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanity If you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk.
S2 · E15
March 2 · 16 min
15. AI and the Campus Revolution: When Students Outpace Their Universities
What happens when AI use among university students doubles in a single year and institutions are still catching up? To mark the launch of Coursera's 2026 AI on Campus Report, Marni Baker Stein, Chief Content Officer, and Jack Moran, Global Enterprise PR Manager, join me to discuss the findings. With nearly half of UK students now using AI to complete their study tasks and 80% reporting improved grades, the data raises urgent questions about what we are actually measuring when we talk about academic success in an AI-augmented world. This conversation explores whether better grades signal deeper learning or simply more polished outputs, why the race to detect AI-generated work is one institutions are already losing, and what it would mean to genuinely redesign assessment for an AI-enabled generation. Marni and Jack also make a compelling case that AI, if intentionally designed, has the potential to strengthen belonging and reduce equity gaps rather than widen them, pointing to evidence from Coursera's own platform that underserved learners are among the most active users of AI tutoring tools. We discuss the tension between student enthusiasm and educator anxiety, why fewer than a third of UK universities have a formal AI policy despite the scale of adoption, and what it means for institutions to move from reactive policies to proactive frameworks that put faculty confidence and student equity at the centre. AI Ethics Now Exploring the ethical dilemmas of AI in Higher Education and beyond. A University of Warwick IATL Podcast This podcast series was developed by Dr Tom Ritchie and Dr Jennie Mills, the module leads of the ⁠ at the University of Warwick. The AI Revolution module explores the history, current state, and potential futures of artificial intelligence, examining its profound impact on society, individuals, and the very definition of 'humanness.' This podcast was initially designed to provide a deeper dive into the key themes explored each week in class. We want to share the discussions we have had to help offer a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence to a wider audience. Join each fortnight for new critical conversations on AI Ethics with local, national, and international experts. We will discuss: Ethical Dimensions of AI: Fairness, bias, transparency, and accountability Societal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanity The Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanity If you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk.
S2 · E14
March 2 · 22 min
14. AI and Agentic Systems: Balancing Autonomy with Human Oversight
When AI agents can navigate systems autonomously, where do you draw the line between efficiency and control? Ed Crook, VP Strategy & Operations at DeepL, reveals how the company shifted from specialised translation to launching autonomous AI agents, and why human-in-the-loop oversight remains non-negotiable even as agentic AI scales across heavily regulated industries. This conversation explores how DeepL agents work through a secondary browser interface where users can view real-time navigation, pause, raise their hand, and take or relinquish control at any time. Ed explains why the agent asks when unsure, building trust the same way you'd work with a new colleague, rather than locking themselves in a dark room until 5pm. We discuss where users still actively request control (login access, sensitive systems), what 20,000 completed tasks during beta testing revealed about when AI needs intervention, and why agents can flawlessly complete advanced tasks yet fail at very basic ones. Ed shares how DeepL works with financial services, pharmaceuticals, and legal professionals navigating compliance requirements whilst exploring agentic AI. Over half of legal professionals report AI lets them spend more time on high-judgment strategic tasks, and two-thirds are already exploring agentic systems. He explains why shadow AI shouldn't be vilified but understood as employees seeking productivity. We discuss how the EU AI Act encourages proportionate responses where high-risk applications carry high responsibility, why having European-built AI success stories matters, and how centrally managed AI tools create governance oversight whilst enabling peer learning across teams. Ed reveals the education gap: access to AI tools has grown faster than training on responsible use, and why upskilling, both technical and conceptual, is the burning priority for companies navigating AI adoption. The challenge: build agents that combine autonomy with human judgment, scale AI adoption with responsible governance, and future-proof teams through peer learning rather than just technical training. AI Ethics Now Exploring the ethical dilemmas of AI in Higher Education and beyond. A University of Warwick IATL Podcast This podcast series was developed by Dr Tom Ritchie and Dr Jennie Mills, the module leads of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠IATL module ⁠"The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology, and Society"⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ at the University of Warwick. The AI Revolution module explores the history, current state, and potential futures of artificial intelligence, examining its profound impact on society, individuals, and the very definition of 'humanness.' This podcast was initially designed to provide a deeper dive into the key themes explored each week in class. We want to share the discussions we have had to help offer a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence to a wider audience. Join each fortnight for new critical conversations on AI Ethics with local, national, and international experts. We will discuss: Ethical Dimensions of AI: Fairness, bias, transparency, and accountability. Societal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanity. The Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanity. If you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk.
S2 · E13
February 16 · 27 min
13. AI and Ecolinguistics: Building Ecosophies to Stop AI Amplifying Environmental Harm
How do we prevent AI from amplifying destructive environmental narratives at a massive scale - potentially 100 billion words per day? Mariana Roccia and Jorge Vallego, from the H4rmony Project, reveal how ecolinguistics and ecosophies can reshape how large language models engage with ecological issues whilst addressing cultural and linguistic bias in AI-generated environmental discourse. This conversation explores how mainstream LLMs celebrate Coca-Cola as a "cultural icon" or patio heaters as "brilliant" without acknowledging environmental costs unless explicitly challenged. The team shares how they developed Theophrastus, an open-source assistant built on ChatGPT, instructed with an ecosophy: a living framework of ecological values that guides language generation toward planetary well-being rather than profit. We discuss how word embeddings cluster dominant narratives together in multidimensional space, why fine-tuning and reinforcement learning can shift those embeddings toward ecologically aligned responses, and how system prompts embed ecosophy into every AI interaction. The team explains their approach using preference datasets rather than imposed answers, working with the International Ecolinguistics Association's 1,500+ researchers to ensure cultural and linguistic representation. Mariana discusses why language representation matters, explaining how AI models are predominantly trained in English, which risks amplifying cultural imbalances and losing local ecological knowledge that's vital for different cultures. Jorge explains why transparency around environmental ethics in AI matters as much as addressing carbon footprint, and why major AI players need to adopt ecosophies just as they address gender and racial bias. This episode continues our new short series featuring conversations from the ⁠⁠⁠Building Bridges: A Symposium on Human-AI Interaction⁠⁠⁠ held at the University of Warwick on 21 November 2025. The symposium was organised by ⁠⁠⁠Dr Yanyan Li⁠⁠⁠, Xianzhi Chen, and Kaiqi Yu, and jointly funded by the Institute of Advanced Study Conversations Scheme and the Doctoral College Networking Fund, with sponsorship from Warwick Students' Union. AI Ethics Now Exploring the ethical dilemmas of AI in Higher Education and beyond. A University of Warwick IATL Podcast This podcast series was developed by Dr Tom Ritchie and Dr Jennie Mills, the module leads of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠IATL module ⁠"The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology, and Society"⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ at the University of Warwick. The AI Revolution module explores the history, current state, and potential futures of artificial intelligence, examining its profound impact on society, individuals, and the very definition of 'humanness.' This podcast was initially designed to provide a deeper dive into the key themes explored each week in class. We want to share the discussions we have had to help offer a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence to a wider audience. Join each fortnight for new critical conversations on AI Ethics with local, national, and international experts. We will discuss: Ethical Dimensions of AI: Fairness, bias, transparency, and accountability. Societal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanity. The Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanity. If you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk.
S2 · E12
February 2 · 25 min
12. AI and Dialogic Feedback: Reframing Student Agency Through AI Partnerships
What happens when AI becomes a dialogic partner in feedback rather than a replacement for human judgment? Dr Viktoria Magne, Dr Rebecca Mace, Sarah Hooper, and Dr Sharon Vince from the University of West London and University of Worcester reveal how structured AI conversations are helping students engage more deeply with feedback whilst keeping academic judgment clearly human-led. This conversation explores how AI creates low-stakes, judgment-free spaces where students can question, challenge, and co-construct understanding without fear of looking silly or upsetting relationships with staff. The team shares how they've designed reflective cycles using structured prompts that position students as active agents rather than passive recipients, and why this matters for equity, emotional safety, and critical AI literacy. We discuss the difference between transactional and dialogic AI use, why feedback shouldn't feel like static judgment, how AI helps students engage in "conversation with themselves", and what happens when first-generation students gain access to a network they've never had before. The team explains why digital literacy means learning to question AI outputs, not just operate tools, and how transparency around staff AI use builds trust. This episode continues our new short series featuring conversations from the ⁠⁠Building Bridges: A Symposium on Human-AI Interaction⁠⁠ held at the University of Warwick on 21 November 2025. The symposium was organised by ⁠⁠Dr Yanyan Li⁠⁠, Xianzhi Chen, and Kaiqi Yu, and jointly funded by the Institute of Advanced Study Conversations Scheme and the Doctoral College Networking Fund, with sponsorship from Warwick Students' Union. AI Ethics Now Exploring the ethical dilemmas of AI in Higher Education and beyond. A University of Warwick IATL Podcast This podcast series was developed by Dr Tom Ritchie and Dr Jennie Mills, the module leads of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠IATL module ⁠"The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology, and Society"⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ at the University of Warwick. The AI Revolution module explores the history, current state, and potential futures of artificial intelligence, examining its profound impact on society, individuals, and the very definition of 'humanness.' This podcast was initially designed to provide a deeper dive into the key themes explored each week in class. We want to share the discussions we have had to help offer a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence to a wider audience. Join each fortnight for new critical conversations on AI Ethics with local, national, and international experts. We will discuss: Ethical Dimensions of AI: Fairness, bias, transparency, and accountability. Societal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanity. The Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanity. If you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk.
S2 · E11
January 18 · 32 min
11. AI and Assessments: When Students Ask "Does This Sound Like Me?"
What happens when students delegate not just writing, but reasoning itself to AI? Chahna Gonsalves, Senior Lecturer at King's Business School, reveals how generative AI is transforming critical thinking in higher education through what she calls "epistemic offloading", the process of outsourcing intellectual work to tools like ChatGPT. This conversation examines how students are using AI to interpret readings, generate argument structures, and pre-evaluate their own work, shifting responsibility for core intellectual tasks. Chahna explores why AI prizes polish over depth, how this affects students' evaluative judgment, and what happens when students ask "does this sound like me?" We discuss the equity implications of tech-savviness, why reflexive AI use matters more than bans, and how Bloom's Taxonomy reveals which cognitive processes students readily offload versus protect. Chahna argues we need transparent conversations about delegation, judgment, and what truly requires human reasoning. Essential listening for anyone grappling with AI's role in learning, assessment design, and the future of thinking itself. This episode continues our new short series featuring conversations from the ⁠Building Bridges: A Symposium on Human-AI Interaction⁠ held at the University of Warwick on 21 November 2025. The symposium was organised by ⁠Dr Yanyan Li⁠, Xianzhi Chen, and Kaiqi Yu, and jointly funded by the Institute of Advanced Study Conversations Scheme and the Doctoral College Networking Fund, with sponsorship from Warwick Students' Union. AI Ethics Now Exploring the ethical dilemmas of AI in Higher Education and beyond. A University of Warwick IATL Podcast This podcast series was developed by Dr Tom Ritchie and Dr Jennie Mills, the module leads of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠IATL module ⁠"The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology, and Society"⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ at the University of Warwick. The AI Revolution module explores the history, current state, and potential futures of artificial intelligence, examining its profound impact on society, individuals, and the very definition of 'humanness.' This podcast was initially designed to provide a deeper dive into the key themes explored each week in class. We want to share the discussions we have had to help offer a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence to a wider audience. Join each fortnight for new critical conversations on AI Ethics with local, national, and international experts. We will discuss: Ethical Dimensions of AI: Fairness, bias, transparency, and accountability. Societal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanity. The Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanity. If you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk.
S2 · E10
January 4 · 35 min
10. AI and Dependence: Are We Misdiagnosing the Harms?
Do you use ChatGPT or Claude daily for work? Mark Carrigan, Senior Lecturer in Education at Manchester Institute of Education, joins the podcast to discuss why we might be misdiagnosing the harms of generative AI. His research suggests the problems aren't inherent to the technology itself, but arise when AI systems meet the already broken bureaucracies of higher education and other sectors. Mark introduces the LLM Interaction Cycle, a framework he developed with philosopher of technology, Milan Stürmer, to understand how we engage with AI over time through three phases: positioning (how we assign roles to the AI), articulation (how we put our needs into words), and attunement (the sense that the AI understands us). He explains how use that begins as purely transactional often drifts toward something more affective as models build memory and context about us, and why this drift matters for how we think about ethical AI use. We go on to explore teacher agency in the age of generative AI, examining why fear of appearing ignorant prevents honest conversations between educators and students. Mark discusses three key risks facing universities: lock-in (dependency on specific platforms), loss of reflection (increasingly habitual rather than thoughtful use), and; commercial capture (vendor interests shaping institutional practices). He argues that reflective use isn't just beneficial but ethically necessary, yet the pressures facing academics and students make reflection increasingly difficult. The conversation finishes by examining why universities in financial crisis are particularly vulnerable to both the promises and pitfalls of AI adoption, how institutional AI strategies risk creating new waves of disruption, and why understanding student realities (including significant paid work commitments) is essential to addressing concerns about AI in education. Mark concludes by making the case that we cannot understand the problems of generative AI without understanding the wider systemic crisis in higher education. This episode launches our new short series featuring conversations from the Building Bridges: A Symposium on Human-AI Interaction held at the University of Warwick on 21 November 2025. The symposium was organised by Dr Yanyan Li, Xianzhi Chen, and Kaiqi Yu, and jointly funded by the Institute of Advanced Study Conversations Scheme and the Doctoral College Networking Fund, with sponsorship from Warwick Students' Union. AI Ethics Now Exploring the ethical dilemmas of AI in Higher Education and beyond. A University of Warwick IATL Podcast This podcast series was developed by Dr Tom Ritchie and Dr Jennie Mills, the module leads of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠IATL module ⁠"The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology, and Society"⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ at the University of Warwick. The AI Revolution module explores the history, current state, and potential futures of artificial intelligence, examining its profound impact on society, individuals, and the very definition of 'humanness.' This podcast was initially designed to provide a deeper dive into the key themes explored each week in class. We want to share the discussions we have had to help offer a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence to a wider audience. Join each fortnight for new critical conversations on AI Ethics with local, national, and international experts. We will discuss: Ethical Dimensions of AI: Fairness, bias, transparency, and accountability. Societal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanity. The Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanity. If you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk.
S2 · E9
Dec 15, 2025 · 24 min
9. AI and Bias: How AI Shapes What We Buy
As you search for Christmas gifts this season, have you asked ChatGPT or Gemini for recommendations? Katarina Mpofu and Jasmine Rienecker from Stupid Human join the podcast to discuss their research examining how AI systems influence public opinion and decision-making. Conducted in collaboration with the University of Oxford, their study analysed over 8,000 AI-generated responses to uncover systematic biases in how AI systems like ChatGPT and Gemini recommend brands, institutions, and governments. Their findings reveal that AI assistants aren't neutral—they have structured and persistent preferences that favour specific entities regardless of how questions are asked or who's asking. ChatGPT consistently recommended Nike for running shoes in over 90% of queries, whilst both models claimed the US has the best national healthcare system. These preferences extend beyond consumer products into government policy and educational institutions, raising critical questions about fairness, neutrality, and AI's role in shaping global narratives. We explore how AI assistants are more persuasive than human debaters, why users trust these systems as sources of truth without questioning their recommendations, and how geographic and cultural biases develop through training data, semantic associations, and user feedback amplification. Katarina and Jasmine explain why language matters - asking in English produces US-centric biases regardless of where you're located - and discuss the implications for smaller brands, niche markets, and diverse user groups systematically disadvantaged by current AI design. The conversation examines whether companies understand they're building these preferences into systems, the challenge of cross-domain bias contamination, and the urgent need for frameworks to identify and benchmark AI biases beyond protected characteristics like race and gender. AI Ethics Now Exploring the ethical dilemmas of AI in Higher Education and beyond. A University of Warwick IATL Podcast This podcast series was developed by Dr Tom Ritchie and Dr Jennie Mills, the module leads of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠IATL module ⁠"The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology, and Society"⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ at the University of Warwick. The AI Revolution module explores the history, current state, and potential futures of artificial intelligence, examining its profound impact on society, individuals, and the very definition of 'humanness.' This podcast was initially designed to provide a deeper dive into the key themes explored each week in class. We want to share the discussions we have had to help offer a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence to a wider audience. Join each fortnight for new critical conversations on AI Ethics with local, national, and international experts. We will discuss: Ethical Dimensions of AI: Fairness, bias, transparency, and accountability. Societal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanity. The Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanity. If you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk.
S2 · E8
Nov 30, 2025 · 25 min
8. AI and Decentralisation: Own AI or Be Owned By It
In this episode, Max Sebti, co-founder and CEO of Score, challenges the centralised control of computer vision systems and makes the case for decentralised AI as a matter of public interest. Max brings experience from AI data annotation and model development, where he witnessed how closed systems collect and control vast amounts of visual data. Now at Score, running on the Bittensor network, he's building "open source computer vision" - systems that are publicly verifiable, permissionless, and collectively owned rather than corporately controlled. His central argument: we face a choice between "own AI or be owned by AI." As computer vision expands from sport into healthcare, insurance, and public surveillance, who controls these systems becomes existential. Max argues citizens should have access to model weights and training data as a democratic necessity. We explore what decentralisation means in practice: how Bittensor's incentive mechanisms unlock talent and data centralised systems can't access, why open source doesn't sacrifice performance, and the stark reality that camera systems are making decisions about you based on models you cannot see. Max introduces competing visions: a "Skynet" scenario where private entities own all visual data, versus a "solar punk" future of abundant energy and AGI where open AI serves collective benefit. The difference? Transparency, accountability, and public ownership. The conversation tackles thorny questions: where should boundaries exist in open systems? How do you prevent misuse whilst maintaining accessibility? Max admits his team hasn't solved this - decentralised AI means thousands of contributors with different values building toward the same goal. Max closes with a call to action: push for open source AI models where people can verify, query, and hold systems accountable. His vision moves AI from corporate product to public utility - not because it's idealistic, but because the alternative is too dangerous. AI Ethics Now Exploring the ethical dilemmas of AI in Higher Education and beyond. A University of Warwick IATL Podcast This podcast series was developed by Dr Tom Ritchie and Dr Jennie Mills, the module leads of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠IATL module ⁠"The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology, and Society"⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ at the University of Warwick. The AI Revolution module explores the history, current state, and potential futures of artificial intelligence, examining its profound impact on society, individuals, and the very definition of 'humanness.' This podcast was initially designed to provide a deeper dive into the key themes explored each week in class. We want to share the discussions we have had to help offer a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence to a wider audience. Join each fortnight for new critical conversations on AI Ethics with local, national, and international experts. We will discuss: Ethical Dimensions of AI: Fairness, bias, transparency, and accountability. Societal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanity. The Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanity. If you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk.

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