Book Celebration - Living with the Algorithm: Servant or Master?

The rapid proliferation of AI brings with it a potentially massive shift in how society interacts with the digital world. New opportunities and challenges are emerging in unprecedented fashion and speed. AI however, comes with its own risks, including the potential for bias and discrimination, reputational harm, and the potential for widescale redundancy of millions of jobs. Many prominent technologists have voiced their concern at the existential risks to humanity that AI pose. So how do we ensure that AI remains our servant and not our master? Our purpose in this book is to identify and address these key risks looking at current approaches to regulation and governance of AI internationally in both the public and private sector, how we meet and mitigate these challenges, avoid inadequate or ill-considered regulatory approaches, and protect ourselves from the unforeseen consequences that could flow from unregulated AI development and adoption.

Tim, Lord Clement-Jones was made CBE for political services in 1988 and a life peer in 1998. He is the Liberal Democrat House of Lords spokesperson for Science, Innovation and Technology; he is former Chair of the House of Lords Select Committee on AI which reported in 2018 with "AI in the UK: Ready Willing and Able?" and its follow-up report in 2020; he was the initiator of and subsequent member of the Special Inquiry Select Committee into AI in Weapons Systems whose final report published December 2023; Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on AI since 2016; a founding member of OECD’s Parliamentary Group on AI and a former Consultant to the Council of Europe’s Adhoc Committee on AI. He is a Consultant on AI Policy and Regulation to global law firm, DLA Piper; Chair of Trust Alliance Group (formerly Ombudsman Services); Chair of Council of Queen Mary University London and President of Ambitious about Autism, an autism education charity.

Welcome: Professor Ioannis Kokkoris, Queen Mary University of London

Introduction: Professor Frances Bowen, Queen Mary University of London

Speakers:

• David Leslie – Professor of Ethics, Technology and Society at DERI, Queen Mary University of London
• Maria Ioannidou - Reader in Competition Law, Queen Mary University of London
• Spyros Maniatis – Director, British Institute of International and Comparative Law Director (BIICL)

The book launch will take place in the Lecture Theatre from 4pm-5:30pm and will be followed by a drinks reception in Room 3.1 until 7pm.