AI Ethics Now

What happens when the chatbot answering your applicants gets it wrong, and nobody notices? In this episode, I speak with Martha Horler , founder of Sparkline Advisory and known to many in the sector as the data goddess. Martha has spent two decades in UK higher education working in student data, statutory returns, digital systems and organisational change. She started out answering the phone to st...

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 fiv...

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 Institu...

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 af...

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 navig...

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 hu...

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 an...

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 creativ...

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...

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 w...

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...

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 &quot...

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. Cra...

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 impr...

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 expl...

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 con...

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 conversat...

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 us...

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. M...

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 system...

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&...

In this episode, Jadee Hansen , Chief Information Security Officer at Vanta , reveals why AI security isn't keeping pace with AI adoption—and why that should concern every organisation. Jadee brings over 20 years of cybersecurity experience across highly regulated sectors, from Target to Code42, where she co-authored the definitive book on insider risk. Now at Vanta, a leading trust management...

In this episode, Christian Lund , co-founder of Templafy , the leading AI-powered document generation platform, diagnoses why billions in AI investment aren't translating into business results. Christian's two decades in document automation have given him a front-row seat to AI's enterprise struggles. His central observation: organisations have successfully built the "brain" of AI systems but they...

In this episode, Ryan Bolick , adjunct assistant professor at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering and Turing Fellow at Fuqua School of Business, discusses Byline - a writing transparency tool he founded that tracks AI and human authorship in real time. Ryan's journey began after his sister-in-law received a zero on her first undergraduate paper when AI detectors falsely claimed she'd use...

In this episode, Dr Maya Ackerman , computer scientist, CEO, musician, and author of the new book " Creative Machines: AI, Art and Us ," explores the intersection of artificial intelligence and human creativity. This conversation with Maya challenges fundamental assumptions about machine creativity, with her arguing that the fear of AI hallucinations reveals more about human psychology t...