Panel Discussion: Should We Trust AI for Net Zero?

Wednesday 18 December, 15.40, Alumni Auditorium

Join our panel for discussion of whether we should trust AI for Net Zero?

Our panel brings together a group with a variety of perspectives on the ethical use of AI, the responsibilities and standards for the communication of complex information to decision-makers, and the role of technology in public life.

Join the event and put forward questions for the panel to consider.

Cassandra Bird

Cassandra is a researcher focusing on the topic of ethical AI for decision making, primarily on the question of how statisticians can (and, in theory, should) engage with this topic. She is interested in the responsibilities that fall on statisticians who produce, deploy and advise decision makers through the use of complex systems. In particular, her work investigates the ways in which practitioners can utilise aspects of statistical philosophy and Bayesian uncertainty quantification to produce actionable mathematical frameworks that can enable ethical decision-making processes in areas such as climate science.

Emily Robinson

Emily is an interdisciplinary researcher at the intersection of computational social and political data science. Her work focuses on understanding how emerging technologies evolve within society, with particular attention to the role of public values and ethical considerations in shaping these innovations. Her most recent research investigates how public discourse, shapes and reflects societal values around new climate technologies like electric vehicles.

Emily is passionate about the responsible design and governance of emerging technologies, ensuring they align with societal needs and values. Her work bridges computational science, communication theory, and social science, offering critical insights into the integration of technology into public life.

Jessica Symons

Dr Jessica Symons is Director of Visioning Lab, an R&D consultancy developing products and services using emerging technologies to tackle social and environmental issues. She is leading the design and delivery of Ontology Maker, an AI-enabled process for producing multilingual controlled vocabularies and glossaries to resolve miscommunication in projects and teams. Recently she developed glossaries for the international network group, the Metaverse Standards Forum and the Advanced Manufacturing Technology Centre in South Korea. To talk about AI enabled wordsets, please contact her on Jessica@visioninglab.com

Edward Pope

Edward Pope is a Met Office Science Fellow developing approaches to make use of weather & climate information for risk-based decision-making, linked to food, water and energy security, and defence. Recent research activities include: co-leading the joint Met Office/NERC TWInning Capability for the Natural Environment (TWINE) programme, developing causal seasonal prediction models, exploring the potential for correlated climate risks to agriculture in the UK, China and sub-Saharan Africa, and developing methods to quantify the economic value of seasonal forecasts.

Veronica Bowman

Veronica Bowman OBE is a Fellow of Data Science at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. She specialises in uncertainty calculation and communication and Bayesian inference. In particular, she has spent many years applying Bayesian methodology and data fusion techniques to real decisions, working with academia to enable decision making under uncertainty. Recently she led the development of the CrystalCast system, which provides uncertainty analysis and model combination, and formed the backbone of the system used to combine academic models for the government response to COVID19. Her current work focusses on delivering impact from digital twins for defence.