Oxford AI and Ethics Summit 2025 - Agenda
We look forward to welcoming you to the expert roundtable discussion, ‘Aligning AI for Human Flourishing’, taking place on Thursday 10 July 2025 at the Palace of Westminster. This event is part of a two-day programme showcasing the work of the Accelerator Fellowship Programme and celebrating the achievements of its inaugural fellows. Please see below the agenda for both days, followed by a list of attendees at the roundtable discussion along with short Bios.
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Agenda for Thursday 10 July
Expert roundtable on the theme of 'Aligning AI for Human Flourishing'
London, Thursday 10 July 2025
10:30 to 16:00
House of Lords, Westminster Parliament
Hosted by by Sir Nigel Shadbolt and Baroness Beeban Kidron.
- 10:30 – 11:00: Welcome and introductions
- 11:00 – 12:30: Setting the scene – current insights into AI alignment
- 12:30 – 13:30: Lunch
- 13:30 – 14:30: Technical and business implications
- 14:30 – 15:30: Policy implications
- 15:30 – 16:00: Future direction
- 16:00 – 16:20: Group photograph, Victoria Tower Gardens
- 16:30 – Depart for King’s College for the discussion, "Do We Need a New AI Bill of Human Rights?"
Public Panel Discussion: ‘Do we need a new AI bill of human rights?’
London, Thursday 10 July 2025
17:30 to 18:30
Bush House, King's College
The Accelerator Fellowship Programme and the Center for Transnational Legal Studies is delighted to present a discussion led by our fellow, Professor Yuval Shany. It brings together leading experts to explore the need for an international AI Bill of Human Rights, including Professor Alondra Nelson, fellow of the Accelerator Fellowship Programme and architect of the Blueprint for AI Bill of Rights, released in October 2022, which formed the rights framework embedded in USA President Joe Biden's executive order on artificial intelligence released in October 2023.
19:30 Dinner with invited guests
London, Thursday 10 July 2025
Cigalon, 115 Chancery Lane, London, WC2A 1PP
Agenda for Saturday 12 July
Public Film Screening of the critically acclaimed documentary "Coded Bias"
Oxford, Saturday 12 July 2025
16:30 to 20:00
Rhodes House, Oxford
- 16:30 – Doors open
- 17:00 – Coded Bias screening begins
- 18:00 – Panel discussion and Q&A
- 19:00 – Reception and book signing
- 20:00 – Event ends
An exclusive screening of the critically acclaimed documentary Coded Bias featuring research by Dr Joy Buolamwini followed by a Q&A and panel discussion, moderated by Financial Times AI Correspondent Melissa Heikkilä. The Q&A and panel discussion will examine ways of creating more equitable and accountable AI systems. Dr Joy Buolamwini, Dr Caroline Green, Dr Alexis Hope are the panellists who will be answering your questions during this event. The evening will end with a book signing of Dr Joy's book Unmasking AI and a reception.
Spaces are limited, please Register here
Biographies of the participants of the roundtable discussion, ‘Aligning AI for Human Flourishing’, taking place on Thursday 10 July 2025
Baroness Beeban Kidron OBE, (Host) Crossbench Peer, House of Lords: Baroness Kidron is a leading voice on children’s rights in the digital environment and a global authority on digital regulation and accountability. She has played a determinative role in establishing standards for online safety and privacy across the world.
Baroness Kidron sits as a crossbench peer in the UK’s House of Lords . She is an advisor to the Institute for Ethics in AI, University of Oxford , a Commissioner on the UN Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development , an expert advisor for the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence, and Founder and Chair of 5Rights Foundation. She is a Visiting Professor of Practice at the London School of Economics, where she chairs the research centre Digital Futures for Children, and a Fellow in the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford. Before being appointed to the Lords she was an award-winning film director and co-founder of the charity Filmclub (now Into Film).
Dr Caroline Green, (Chair) Director of Research and Head of Public Engagement, Institute for Ethics in AI; Programme lead, Accelerator Fellowship Programme, University of Oxford. Caroline's research focuses on AI and human rights, specifically in the fields of health and social care. Caroline holds a LLB (Hons) from the University of Edinburgh, an MSc in Human Rights from the LSE, a MA in Investigative Journalism from City University and a PhD in Gerontology from King's College London. Dr Green is rapidly becoming one of UK’s leading voices on the responsible use of artificial intelligence in adult social care.
Professor Sir Nigel Shadbolt, (Speaker) Professor of Computer Science, University of Oxford; Chairman of the Open Data Institute: Nigel is a leading researcher in Artificial Intelligence and one of the originators of the interdisciplinary field of Web Science. He is Principal of Jesus College Oxford and Professor of Computing Science at Oxford University. He is chairman of the Open Data Institute which he co-founded with Sir Tim Berners-Lee. He was knighted in 2013 for ‘services to science and engineering’. With over 500 publications, he has researched and published on topics from cognitive psychology to computational neuroscience, Artificial Intelligence to the Semantic Web. In 2018 he published ‘The Digital Ape: how to live (in peace) with smart machines’, described as a ‘landmark book’. In May 2024 he published ‘As If Human’, which provides a new approach to the challenges surrounding AI. In 2025 he was appointed to the Council for Science and Technology, which advises the Prime Minister and the Cabinet on strategic science and technology policy issues. He is a Fellow of The Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the British Computer Society.
Professor Alondra Nelson, (Speaker) former Acting Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the Harold F. Linder Chair at the Institute for Advanced Study and Accelerator Fellow, at the Institute for Ethics in AI: Alondra Nelson is the Harold F. Linder Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, an independent research centre in Princeton, New Jersey, where she founded and leads the Science, Technology, and Social Values Lab. Past-president and CEO of the Social Science Research Council, she was previously the inaugural Dean of Social Science and Professor of Sociology at Columbia University. Nelson began her academic career on the faculty of Yale University and received its Poorvu Award for interdisciplinary teaching excellence. A distinguished sociologist of science and technology, Nelson is the author of acclaimed books, essays, and articles. Her honours include the MIT Morison Prize, the Sage-CASBS Award from Stanford University for “outstanding achievement in the behavioural and social sciences that advances our understanding of pressing social issues,” and the inaugural Friedrich Schiedel Prize for Social Sciences and Technology, for "pioneering work and outstanding and field-building contributions at the intersection of social sciences and technology" from the Technical University of Munich.
Professor Nelson served as Deputy Assistant to President Joe Biden and acting director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where she drove the development of the administration's landmark "Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights," which became a pillar of President Biden's AI executive order. In 2022, she was internationally recognised by Nature as one of the "Ten People Who Shaped Science," and in 2023, she was named to TIME100's inaugural list of the most influential people in the field of AI. From 2023-2024, she served on the United Nations High-Level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence. In 2025, she was invited to address heads of state, CEOs, and civil society leaders at the international AI Action Summit in France on "Three Fallacies" in our approach to AI, asserting we can create AI systems that expand opportunity rather than consolidate power for the few.
Professor Nelson's essays, reviews, and commentary have been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Wired, and Science. She is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the U.S. National Academy of Medicine, and the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations.
Dr Iason Gabriel, (Speaker) Philosopher, Senior Staff Research Scientist, Google Deepmind: Iason Gabriel is a research scientist at Google DeepMind where he leads the Humanity, Ethics and Alignment Research Team (HEART). His work focuses on the ethics of artificial intelligence, including questions about AI value alignment, distributive justice, language ethics, and human rights. More generally, Iason is interested in AI and human values, and in ensuring that technology works well for the benefit of all. Before joining DeepMind, Iason taught moral and political philosophy at Oxford University , and worked for the United Nations Development Program in Lebanon and Sudan.
Dr Joy Buolamwini, Founder, Algorithmic Justice League; computer scientist, author, artist and AI researcher and Accelerator Fellow, at the Institute for Ethics in AI: Dr Joy Buolamwini stands at the vanguard of AI ethics as a pioneering MIT researcher and multidisciplinary artist. She is the author of the National Bestseller Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines and advises world leaders on preventing AI harms. Her landmark “Gender Shades” research galvanised the field of algorithmic auditing, ranking among the most influential AI bias studies ever published. This consequential research compelled three tech giants to halt sales of facial recognition technologies (FRTs) to law enforcement and sparked worldwide discourse on ethical AI implementation.
Known as the "Poet of Code," Doctor Buolamwini's artistic practice spans four continents, illuminating AI's societal impact through art exhibitions and poetic performance. Her doctoral dissertation conceptualized the "evocative audit" theory behind works like “AI, Ain’t I A Woman?”—a powerful spoken word poem and visual AI audit exposing how household tech platforms misclassify prominent women including Oprah Winfrey, Serena Williams, and Michelle Obama. As a public intellectual, her TED talk on algorithmic bias has been viewed over 1.8 million times. The Emmy-nominated documentary Coded Bias, chronicling her evolution from graduate researcher to algorithmic justice advocate, was available to over 100 million Netflix viewers worldwide.
A Rhodes Scholar and Fulbright Fellow, Doctor Buolamwini received the Technological Innovation Award from the Martin Luther King Jr. Center. Fortune Magazine names her the "conscience of the AI revolution," while Time magazine placed her on their inaugural list of the 100 most influential figures in artificial intelligence. After earning her doctorate from MIT, she received honorary degrees from both Knox College and Dartmouth. In 2024, her contributions were recognised with the NAACP-Civil Digital Rights Award, presented by Prince Harry and the Duchess of Sussex.
Lord Clement-Jones, Liberal Democrat spokesperson in the House of Lords for Science, Innovation and Technology: Lord Clement-Jones was appointed CBE for political services in 1988 and a life peer in 1998. He is the Liberal Democrat spokesperson in the House of Lords for Science, Innovation and Technology. A leading voice on AI, he initiated and served on the Special Inquiry Select Committee on AI in Weapons Systems (2022–23) and currently sits on the UK Engagement with Space Committee. In 2017, he chaired the House of Lords Select Committee on AI and also co-founded and has since co-chaired, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on AI. Internationally, he is a founding member of the OECD Parliamentary Group on AI and a former consultant to the Council of Europe’s Ad-hoc Committee on AI. Previous committee roles include the Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill (2021–22) and the Industry and Regulators Committee (2023-25). Outside Parliament, he is a Consultant on AI Policy and Regulation at global law firm DLA Piper, where previous roles include London Managing Partner. He is Chair of the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society, former Chair of Council at Queen Mary University of London (2017-25) and former Chair of Trust Alliance Group (2016-25). He is President of Ambitious about Autism.
Dr Emma Curran, Lecturer in Ethics, University of Oxford: Emma Curran is a Departmental Lecturer in Ethics at the Faculty of Philosophy and Hertford College. Before joining Oxford, Emma was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Rutgers University. Emma holds both a PhD and MPhil in Philosophy from the University of Cambridge, and completed her undergraduate studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Dr Clenton Farquharson, Associate Director, Think Local Act personal: Clenton is an Associated Director of the Think Local Act Personal Partnership, a cross-sector leadership partnership focused on driving forward work with personalisation, community-based health and social care. Their unique strength is bringing together people who use services and family carers with central and local government, major providers from the private, third and voluntary sector and other key groups. Clenton is named in Disability News Services’ List of influential disabled people.
Professor Jakob Foerster, Associate Professor of Engineering Science, University of Oxford: Jakob Foerster helped bring deep multi-agent reinforcement learning to the forefront of AI research and interned at Google Brain, OpenAI, and DeepMind. He has worked as a research scientist at Facebook AI Research in California, where he continued doing foundational work. He was the lead organizer of the first Emergent Communication workshop at NeurIPS in 2017, which he has helped organize ever since and was awarded a prestigious CIFAR AI chair in 2019. His past work addresses how AI agents can learn to cooperate and communicate with other agents, most recently he has been developing and addressing the zero-shot coordination problem setting, a crucial step towards human-AI coordination.
Lord Freyberg, House of Lords crossbencher.
Dr Yarin Gal, Associate Professor of Machine Learning, and Lead of the Oxford and Theoretical Machine Learning Group, University of Oxford; Director of Research, AI Security Institute.
Dr Simeon Goldstraw, Senior Parliamentary Assistant to Baroness Kidron: I am a Senior Parliamentary Assistant to Baroness Kidron, supporting the Baroness with her parliamentary work and research across her political interests. Before working for Baroness Kidron, I completed a DPhil in Political Theory at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. Amongst other things, my doctoral thesis took an interest in ethical and theoretical debates surrounding artificial intelligence and the future of work.
Ms Lizzie Greenhalgh, Deputy Director for AI Regulation, Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology at DSIT: Lizzie Greenhalgh is the Deputy Director for AI Regulation at DSIT. She’s been working on tech regulation for nearly five years, including leading work on HMG’s overall regulatory strategy, designing the Digital Markets Unit and focusing on AI for the last couple of years. Prior to that, she worked in Cabinet Office and in a variety of roles across civil society and the private sector.
Dr Ekaterina Hertog, Associate Professor of AI and Society, University of Oxford: Ekaterina Hertog is an Associate Professor of AI and Society at the University of Oxford, specializing in the intersection of digital sociology and family sociology. Her research explores the impact of digital technologies, particularly AI, on family life, with a focus on childcare, parental control technologies, and the societal implications of digital monitoring. Hertog's work examines how these technologies influence parent-child relationships, children's autonomy, and family well-being. She has published a position paper on "Data Driven Parenting" and is developing a research program on digital technologies in childcare. Her research, which includes the ESRC-funded Domestic AI project, has gained significant media attention, featured in outlets such as BBC Ideas and podcasts by the Oxford Internet Institute.
Professor Noreena Hertz, Author, board member and keynote speaker: Author, board member and keynote speaker Professor Noreena Hertz is acclaimed as "one of the world's leading thinkers" by The Observer and hailed by Vogue as "one of the world's most inspiring women." A pioneering economist whose work intersects the nexus of economics, technology, politics and society, Noreena has written five bestselling books including "The Lonely Century," "Eyes Wide Open" and “The Silent Takeover” and has spoken at prestigious events including TED, the World Economic Forum, and Google Zeitgeist. She advises some of the most senior leaders in the world on strategy, the post-millennials, AI and transformation; has served on Citigroup’s Politics and Economics Global Advisory Board and the Inclusive Capitalism Taskforce’s Advisory Group; and sits on the boards of Mattel, Warner Music Group and Workhuman. Her thinking served as the inspiration for Bono’s Product ‘Red’. With a PhD from Cambridge University and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Noreena is based at the UCL Policy Lab, where she is Honorary Professor. https://noreena.com/about/
Ms Karen Houghton, Head of Impact, Humanities Division, University of Oxford: Head of Impact is responsible for the strategic planning of the development and evaluation of impact from the Division's research. Working closely with the Associate Head (Research and KE, Innovation and Impact), the role supports the Division's research and impact strategy, including broadening mechanisms for working with external partners, overseeing impact arising through heritage and creative industry partnerships, and the articulation of impact for REF.
Professor Philipp Koralus, McCord Professor of Philosophy and AI, and Director of the Human-Centred AL Lab, University of Oxford: Philipp Koralus is McCord Professor of Philosophy and AI and Director of the Human-Centered AI Lab (HAI Lab) in the Institute for Ethics in AI at the University of Oxford. He is the author of Reason and Inquiry (OUP 2023). His research focuses on the nature of reason and on the problem of bringing AI systems into the service of human flourishing. He was previously Fulford Clarendon Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at the University of Oxford. He has held fellowships at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study and at Washington University in St. Louis. He holds a Phd in Philosophy and Neuroscience from Princeton University.
Baroness Onora O’Neill, crossbench member of the House of Lords: Onora O’Neill combines writing on political philosophy and ethics with a range of public activities. She comes from Northern Ireland and has worked mainly in Britain and the US. She was Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge from 1992-2006, President of the British Academy from 2005-9, chaired the Nuffield Foundation from 1998-2010, has been a crossbench member of the House of Lords since 2000 (Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve). She has chaired the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission from 2012-16 and served on the Medical Research Council and the Banking Standards Board until 2018. In 2017, she was awarded the Holberg Prize and the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture. She lectures and writes on justice and ethics, accountability and trust, justice and borders, as well as on the future of universities, the quality of legislation and the ethics of communication.
Dr Giada Pistilli, Principal Ethicist at Hugging Face: Giada Pistilli is a philosopher specialised in the ethical dimensions of Artificial Intelligence, with a particular emphasis on conversational agents. My research primarily explores comparative ethical frameworks and moral philosophy, specifically focusing on their application to Machine Learning, namely Natural Language Processing. This spans from conversational agents to Large Language Models, addressing the diverse granularity of these technologies. My work in the field has led me to be selected in the 2024 list of “100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics”, promoted by Women in AI Ethics.
Ms Elizabeth Renieris, Senior Research Associate, Institute for Ethics in AI, University of Oxford; senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation: Elizabeth is an internationally renowned privacy expert, lawyer, researcher, and author focused on the ethical and human rights implications of new and advanced technologies, specializing in AI, machine learning, and digital identity. She is a senior research associate at Oxford’s Institute for Ethics in AI, senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, guest editor on Responsible AI at MIT Sloan Management Review, and the author of Beyond Data: Reclaiming Human Rights at the Dawn of the Metaverse (MIT Press). Elizabeth holds an LLM from the London School of Economics, JD from Vanderbilt University, and AB from Harvard College.
Ms Imogen Rivers, (Note-taker) doctoral candidate at the Institute for Ethics in AI: Imogen Rivers is a doctoral candidate at the Institute for Ethics in AI and a David Karmel Scholar at Gray’s Inn. Her research on AI ethics in the law spans questions of ethics, responsibility and rights. During the DPhil in Philosophy (2023-2025, St John’s College), she will also be completing the Graduate Diploma in Law (2023-2025, Oxford Brookes) with a research focus studying the impacts of AI technology on IP law.
Professor Murray Shanahan, Emeritus Professor in Artificial Intelligence, Department of Computing, Faculty of Engineering, Imperial College London
Professor Yuval Shany, international law expert and former Chair of the UN Human Rights Committee and Accelerator Fellow, at the Institute for Ethics in AI: Professor Yuval Shany is the Hersch Lauterpacht Chair in International Law and former Dean of the Law Faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He also serves as a Senior Research Fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, and a Visiting Professor in the Center for Transnational Legal Studies (CTLS) at King’s College, London and the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva. He was a member of the UN Human Rights Committee between 2013-2020 (chairing the Committee between 2018-2019). His current research focuses on international human rights law and new technology and he leads a European Research Council group or researchers investigating the three generation of digital human rights (3GDR).
Dr Brittany Smith, UK Policy and Partnership Lead, OpenAI: Brittany Smith is the Head of UK Policy at OpenAI. Brittany has held leadership roles working at the intersection of AI and equity in industry, civil society, and philanthropy. Previously, she was a Program Officer at Schmidt Futures' AI2050 Initiative and the Policy Director at Data & Society Research Institute. She also worked at Alphabet in a range of policy and government affairs roles in London and San Francisco. At DeepMind, she helped build the company’s first policy and ethics research team, including creating and leading the company’s first programs on human rights and racial justice. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Partnership on AI, and graduated from Northwestern University and the London School of Economics.
Professor Christopher Summerfield, Cognitive Neuroscientist and AI Researcher University of Oxford; Research Director, AI Security Institute: Christopher Summerfield has one foot in the field of cognitive neuroscience — studying the brains of humans as a professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Oxford — and the other in AI research — helping to build intelligent systems as a staff research scientist at the pioneering Google DeepMind. He has won several awards, including the prestigious Cognitive Neuroscience Society Young Investigator Award in 2015. He is regularly invited to give keynote talks across the world. Christopher has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles, reviews, and book chapters and his academic book, Natural General Intelligence: How Understanding the Brain Can Help Us Build AI, was widely acclaimed. His first book for a general readership is These Strange New Minds: How AI Learned to Talk and What It Means.
Professor Phil Torr, Director, International Multimodal Communication Centre (IMCC): Distinguished Fellow at Institute for Ethics and AI, Advisor, Everyln, Eigent, DreamTech, Founder director AIstetic.
