British Academy engagement around the AI Summits

In February 2025, the British Academy was a partner to the AI Fringe, a series of events aimed to complement the 2025 AI Action Summit in Paris by bringing a broad and diverse range of voices into the conversations around AI.

As part of the AI Fringe, the British Academy organised a panel discussion on 11 February on 'The role of the Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts (the 'SHAPE' disciplines) in aligning AI with the public interest'. This panel discussion brought together voices from across academia, civil society and industry to consider the unique value of the SHAPE disciplines in aligning AI with the public interest, and how these disciplines can help us to determine what AI in the public interest (and, more broadly, a 'good digital society') actually looks like.

The event was chaired by Professor Sonia Livingstone FBA (Professor of Social Psychology at the London School of Economics and Political Science). The panellists were:

• Dr Kate Miltner, Lecturer in Data, AI & Society, University of Sheffield
• Sarah Gold, Founder & CEO, Projects by IF
• Professor Shalom Lappin FBA, Professor of Natural Language Processing, Queen Mary University of London
• Dr John Taylor, CEO, action.ai

A video recording of the discussion can be viewed below.

The British Academy engaged in a variety of activities around the 2023 UK AI Safety Summit, including partnering with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology on a pre-Summit event, and holding an event as part of the AI Fringe, a series of events hosted across London and the UK to complement the UK government’s AI Safety Summit by bringing a broad and diverse range of voices into the conversation.

Following the AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park, the UK's four national academies issued a joint statement.

In 2023, the British Academy partnered with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology on one of four official events in the build-up to the UK AI Safety Summit, the outcomes of which aimed to feed directly into the Summit planning. On 12 October 2023, the British Academy event hosted a private roundtable on ‘Possibilities of AI for the public good: the summit and beyond’.

The British Academy produced a high-level summary of the themes that emerged from the discussion. DSIT also compiled a summary of the discussions across the range of their pre-Summit activities.

In 2023, the British Academy was a partner to the AI Fringe to complement the UK government’s AI Safety Summit. The AI Fringe was a separate event to the AI Safety Summit. As part of the AI Fringe, the British Academy and UCL Public Policy hosted a panel debate on 30 October on ‘The Possibilities of AI and Good Work’.

The development, adoption, and use of AI in the context of work holds a range of possibilities for the future, including both opportunities and uncertainties for the future of work in its various forms. This panel discussion brought together representatives from business, civil society, and academia to generate dialogue, shared understanding, and ways forward around the role of AI in work. The event was free and open to public attendance, and held at the British Academy, 10-11 Carlton House Terrace, London, SW1Y 5AH. A video recording of the discussion can be viewed below.

The event was chaired by Professor Jack Stilgoe (Professor of Science and Technology Policy, UCL), with opening remarks to be provided by Professor Helen Margetts FBA (Director of the Public Policy Programme at the Alan Turing Institute and Professor of Society and the Internet at the University of Oxford). The panellists were:

• Anna Thomas, Co-Founder and Director, Institute for the Future of Work
• Dan Conway, CEO, Publishers Association
• Rob McCargow, Technology Impact Leader, PwC United Kingdom
• Sophia Adams Bhatti, Head of Purpose and Impact, Simmons & Simmons LLP

A blog summarising the main messages from the event is available.