Overview from Professor Shannon Vallor, Director of the Centre for Technomoral Futures

As we bring another year to a close, I am filled with pride and gratitude for what the Centre for Technomoral Futures has achieved in 2023-2024. It has been a year of extraordinary activity, with an array of events, seminars, and research that continues to shape the Centre’s mission to unify technical and moral knowledge that directly serves the goals of sustainable, just and ethical innovation.

Our first group of research affiliates joined us, expanding our community with researchers from across the University. This programme has brought fresh perspectives and collaborative opportunities to the Centre, and we are eager to see how these new connections will evolve in the coming years. In 2023-2024, we also welcomed our first cohort of students into our MSc Programme in Data and AI Ethics.

Another highlight has been the successful introduction of our matching PhD fellowship program. This initiative has enabled us to support a new generation of interdisciplinary PhD researchers, whose work directly aligns with the Centre’s mission. Their contributions are already enriching our academic community and advancing critical research.

For the first time, we now have a dedicated space within the Edinburgh Futures Institute, bringing our staff and students together under one roof. The opening of the Institute, housed in the beautifully restored Old Royal Infirmary, is a historic moment for the University and for us. Our new home provides a unique environment for collaboration and innovation. We invite you to come and experience it for yourself. EFI is open to visitors from 9am to 5pm on weekdays, and we look forward to welcoming you into our vibrant community.

As we continue to grow and evolve, I want to express my gratitude to our supporters, staff, and students. Your unwavering dedication and collaboration are what make our Centre’s success possible, and I am excited for the next year as we enter this exciting new chapter together.

Keep reading for a quick look at the past year at the CTMF, or click below to read the full report!

Read the full report

Research Highlights

This year, our CTMF community continued to contribute to leading research surrounding the ethics of AI and other data-driven technologies. A few publications highlights from our Centre staff include:

Professor Shannon Vallor’s latest book, ‘The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking’ was published on 3 June 2024. In this compelling work, Professor Vallor explores the potential for AI to serve as a tool for reclaiming our moral and intellectual growth, instead of reflecting the constraints of the past. She calls for a deep rethinking of what AI is and can be.
Dr Atoosa Kasirzadeh was awarded a prestigious early career fellowship from the AI2050 program at Schmidt Sciences. Starting in fall 2024, this two-year fellowship will support her ground-breaking research on AI value alignment, a crucial area of study that explores how AI systems can be better aligned with human values and ethical principles.
In 2023-2024, Dr John Zerilli contributed extensively to AI ethics discourse. He authored a chapter titled ‘Is AI Ethics All Fluff?’ in AI Morality and a journal article, ‘Process Rights and the Automation of Public Services Through AI: The Case of the Liberal State,’ published in Just Security.
Dr Cristina Richie has made significant contributions to the fields of environmental ethics and bioethics with the publication of two new books in spring 2024: ‘Environmental Ethics and Medical Reproduction’ and ‘Environmental Bioethics: Theory and Practice for Environmentally Sustainable Health Care’ (edited volume).
In his first year at the University of Edinburgh, Dr Fabio Tollon has contributed to the strategic direction of the Centre while being actively engaged with his research priorities. In May, Dr Tollon gave a lecture on, ‘Responsibility Gaps and Technology: Old Wine in New Bottles,’ where he discussed the importance of connecting current debates around responsibility gaps and technology back to old debates in responsibility theory.
In her recent commentary for AI & Ethics, ‘The Harms of Terminology: Why We Should Reject So-Called ‘Frontier AI’’, Dr Gina Helfrich critiques the problematic framing of ‘frontier AI’ and challenges the narratives that fuel the divide between AI 'doomers' and 'boomers'.

Our PhD Fellows have excelled over the past year, attending and presenting at conferences world-wide, publishing new research, and contributing to our vibrant research community. A few highlights from this year include:

Savina Kim, the first of our fully funded early career researchers, completed her PhD and is now working as a Trustworthy AI Specialist for UBS Switzerland!
Nearing the completion of his PhD, Jamie Webb is pursuing a career path in academia. Jamie is planning to accept a prestigious postdoctoral research post at the University of Oxford to begin in Autumn 2024.
Set to submit his PhD thesis in Autumn 2024, Joe Noteboom has secured employment with the Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI). He will be working as a Senior Learning Technology and Design Advisor to support the development and delivery of EFI's educational programmes.
Bhargavi Ganesh completed a 6-month internship on AI Assurance at the Centre for Data, Ethics and Innovation (CDEI), now renamed the Responsible Technology Adoption Unit (RTA) within the Department of Science, Innovation, and Technology (DSIT).
Claire Barale is one of nine early-career researchers who received the Bloomberg Data Science PhD Fellowship for 2023-2024! These Fellowships aim to provide mentorship and professional development for the next generation of data science talent.
We expanded our cohort of PhD Fellows, with the addition of four matching fellows: Elisa Cardamone, Han-Ju (Emma) Yang, Iñaki Goñi, and Yiping Cao.

In 2023, the Centre launched its Affiliation Programme, creating a thriving interdisciplinary community of scholars focused on ethical approaches to artificial intelligence and data-driven technologies. Since launching the programme we have welcomed approximately 50 researchers from across the University, representing all three Colleges and spanning multiple disciplines.

Education Highlights

In September 2023, we welcomed the first cohort of the MSc in Data and AI Ethics. The MSc programme was co-developed by Centre staff including Professor Shannon Vallor, Dr Atoosa Kasirzadeh, Dr John Zerilli and Senior Research Affiliate, Dr James Garforth. The programme aims to address the urgent need for interdisciplinary expertise in the ethical design, use, and governance of AI and data-intensive technologies.

You can read about the teaching team’s experience collaborating across social science and computer science to design and teach the new ‘Translational Data and AI Ethics’ intensive course (part of the MSc programme) on the CTMF Blog.

Read ‘Bridging the Gap: Reflections from teaching translational data and AI ethics’