AI Ethics Now

Tom Ritchie, IATL, WIHEA, University of Warwick
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AI Ethics Now is a podcast dedicated to exploring the complex issues surrounding artificial intelligence from a non-specialist perspective, including bias, ethics, privacy, and accountability. Join us as we discuss the challenges and opportunities of AI and work towards a future where technology benefits society as a whole. This podcast idea was first developed by Dr Tom Ritchie and Dr Jennie Mills as part of The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology, and Society module, taught as part of IATL at the University of Warwick.

  1. 5d ago

    2. AI and Youth: Growing Up Inside the Machine

    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 and policymakers at UNESCO in Paris on AI and the rights of children. Nikhil works with the AI Collective, everyone.AI, CoGenerate, and iRAISE on meaningful youth inclusion in AI design. Nikhil argues that young people are not future users to be considered later, but they are current users, already shaped by these systems during their most formative years. He challenges the idea that efficiency is the main risk, pointing instead to over-reliance, the erosion of original thinking, and the quiet normalisation of AI as emotional support. I push back on what meaningful inclusion actually looks like and whether a seat on a panel is anywhere near enough. We also discuss the gap between learning to prompt ChatGPT and understanding what it is actually doing to you, why existing ethical frameworks keep missing young people, and what it would take to build AI governance that starts with the people growing up inside it. AI Ethics Now Exploring the ethical dilemmas of AI in Higher Education and beyond. A University of Warwick IATL Podcast This podcast series was developed by Dr Tom Ritchie and Dr Jennie Mills, the module leads of the ⁠ at the University of Warwick. The ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠IATL module ⁠"The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology, and Society"⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ module explores the history, current state, and potential futures of artificial intelligence, examining its profound impact on society, individuals, and the very definition of 'humanness.' This podcast was initially designed to provide a deeper dive into the key themes explored each week in class. We want to share the discussions we have had to help offer a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence to a wider audience. Join each fortnight for new critical conversations on AI Ethics with local, national, and international experts. We will discuss: Ethical Dimensions of AI: Fairness, bias, transparency, and accountabilitySocietal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanityThe Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanityIf you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk.

    23 min

  2. Jun 1

    1. AI and Originality: The End of Excuses

    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 creative AI programme. Billy has directed high-profile campaigns for Fiverr and music videos for artists including Taylor Swift, Lewis Capaldi, and Fred Durst. He doesn't theorise about AI and creativity. He does it, every day, at commercial scale. This is not a comfortable conversation. Billy challenges the idea that AI is democratising creativity, arguing instead that it removes barriers to entry, which is a very different thing. He makes the case that most people aren't storytellers, that the race to resist AI training data is already over, and that the real ethical question isn't what AI is trained on but what you do with it. Tom pushes back on consent, on the freelance workforce, on who gets left behind. They also discuss the FAIR framework for responsible prompting, why guardrails on IP are actually good for originality, and what it means to build a studio practice that is both creatively ambitious and legally compliant. AI Ethics Now Exploring the ethical dilemmas of AI in Higher Education and beyond. A University of Warwick IATL Podcast This podcast series was developed by Dr Tom Ritchie and Dr Jennie Mills, the module leads of the ⁠ at the University of Warwick. The ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠IATL module ⁠"The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology, and Society"⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ module explores the history, current state, and potential futures of artificial intelligence, examining its profound impact on society, individuals, and the very definition of 'humanness.' This podcast was initially designed to provide a deeper dive into the key themes explored each week in class. We want to share the discussions we have had to help offer a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence to a wider audience. Join each fortnight for new critical conversations on AI Ethics with local, national, and international experts. We will discuss: Ethical Dimensions of AI: Fairness, bias, transparency, and accountabilitySocietal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanityThe Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanityIf you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk.

    28 min
  3. 20. AI and Grief: When Death Becomes a Business Model

    May 6

    20. AI and Grief: When Death Becomes a Business Model

    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 force behind Dead Air, a darkly comic solo show that has been turning heads since its acclaimed run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and is now playing at Greenwich Theatre, London, 13 to 16 May 2026, joins the podcast to explore what happens when death becomes a business model. Inspired by her own experience of losing her father, Alfrun describes how she fell into researching real-world AI tools that claim to keep the conversation going after death. Dead Air is the result, not just theatre, but a timely interrogation of who these tools are really serving, and at what cost to people processing grief. We discuss the predatory marketing of AI grief services, the dangers of sycophantic design, what "temperature control" reveals about the illusion of connection, the thin line between therapeutic tool and exploitative product, and why Alfrun made the deliberate choice to create a show about AI without using any AI at all. AI Ethics Now Exploring the ethical dilemmas of AI in Higher Education and beyond. A University of Warwick IATL Podcast This podcast series was developed by Dr Tom Ritchie and Dr Jennie Mills, the module leads of the ⁠ at the University of Warwick. The ⁠⁠⁠⁠IATL module ⁠"The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology, and Society"⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ module explores the history, current state, and potential futures of artificial intelligence, examining its profound impact on society, individuals, and the very definition of 'humanness.' This podcast was initially designed to provide a deeper dive into the key themes explored each week in class. We want to share the discussions we have had to help offer a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence to a wider audience. Join each fortnight for new critical conversations on AI Ethics with local, national, and international experts. We will discuss: Ethical Dimensions of AI: Fairness, bias, transparency, and accountabilitySocietal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanityThe Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanityIf you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk.

    29 min
  4. 19. AI and Inclusive Clinical Education: Levelling the Playing Field or Reinforcing the Bias?

    Apr 26

    19. AI and Inclusive Clinical Education: Levelling the Playing Field or Reinforcing the Bias?

    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 work examining generative AI in clinical education through the lens of EDI and inclusive practice. Ban brings a critical perspective rooted in concerns about bias and representation, while Saskia brings an optimistic one, shaped in part by her own experience as a dyslexic academic who saw AI's levelling potential from the start. Together, they make a compelling case for why the inclusion conversation needs to be at the centre of how healthcare educators adopt AI, not bolted on afterwards. They discuss using AI to generate diverse patient vignettes, the risk of stereotypical outputs when prompts aren't carefully constructed, awarding gaps, neurodivergence and academic anxiety, the danger of AI models being trained on AI-generated content, and why university policies around AI use need to catch up with the reality of how people actually work and learn. AI Ethics Now Exploring the ethical dilemmas of AI in Higher Education and beyond. A University of Warwick IATL Podcast This podcast series was developed by Dr Tom Ritchie and Dr Jennie Mills, the module leads of the ⁠ at the University of Warwick. The ⁠⁠⁠IATL module ⁠"The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology, and Society"⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ module explores the history, current state, and potential futures of artificial intelligence, examining its profound impact on society, individuals, and the very definition of 'humanness.' This podcast was initially designed to provide a deeper dive into the key themes explored each week in class. We want to share the discussions we have had to help offer a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence to a wider audience. Join each fortnight for new critical conversations on AI Ethics with local, national, and international experts. We will discuss: Ethical Dimensions of AI: Fairness, bias, transparency, and accountabilitySocietal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanityThe Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanityIf you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk.

    24 min
  5. 18. AI and Co-Intelligence: Beyond Prompts to Critical Partnership

    Apr 12

    18. AI and Co-Intelligence: Beyond Prompts to Critical Partnership

    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 use among their students. Drawing on Ethan Mollick's Co-Intelligence and the concept of co-thinking introduced by AI Swiss in 2025, they've built a course that goes far beyond prompt engineering to ask deeper questions about how humans and AI can genuinely collaborate. Valentina and Kevin share how they teach students to identify cultural, linguistic, and gender biases in AI outputs, including a classroom exercise that reveals how ChatGPT categorises ambition and management as male, and home and childcare as female. They discuss why bias in AI doesn't just reflect the world as it is, but amplifies it, creating a vicious cycle that's difficult to break. We explore the concept of embodied intelligence (what humans bring that AI fundamentally cannot) and why AI's inability to say "I don't know" matters more than students initially realise. Kevin and Valentina also reflect on what hasn't worked in the classroom, including how ChatGPT's failure to recognise mental health crisis language had real-world consequences before OpenAI intervened. With 70-80% of their students believing AI will replace their chosen career, this episode is essential listening for anyone thinking about how to prepare the next generation not just to use AI, but to lead it. AI Ethics Now Exploring the ethical dilemmas of AI in Higher Education and beyond. A University of Warwick IATL Podcast This podcast series was developed by Dr Tom Ritchie and Dr Jennie Mills, the module leads of the ⁠ at the University of Warwick. The ⁠⁠IATL module ⁠"The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology, and Society"⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ module explores the history, current state, and potential futures of artificial intelligence, examining its profound impact on society, individuals, and the very definition of 'humanness.' This podcast was initially designed to provide a deeper dive into the key themes explored each week in class. We want to share the discussions we have had to help offer a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence to a wider audience. Join each fortnight for new critical conversations on AI Ethics with local, national, and international experts. We will discuss: Ethical Dimensions of AI: Fairness, bias, transparency, and accountabilitySocietal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanityThe Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanityIf you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk.

    34 min
  6. 17. AI and Amplification: Beyond Automation to Human-Centred Progress

    Mar 29

    17. AI and Amplification: Beyond Automation to Human-Centred Progress

    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 "woah" to "grow", and why most organizations haven't moved past excitement about automation. Bryan argues the real value of AI isn't replacing human capability through automation, but augmenting it through amplification. The question isn't "what can AI automate?" but "how can AI make humans better at what they do?" We discuss AI as doer, assistant, and creator, and why the creator role raises the most ethical concerns right now. When machines generate new information, who owns it? Is machine-assisted design copyrightable? AI doesn't invent – it regresses to the mean – so it's "new, but not new." Bryan shares why AI as assistant is where the real success lies: it leaves ethical responsibility with humans while providing cognitive support. Students aren't just using ChatGPT to write essays, they're using it as an electronic tutor to understand material that wasn't explained clearly in lectures. Education needs to shift from banning AI to teaching both AI-amplified work and fundamental skills. We explore why "success is toxic" for established organizations struggling with AI adoption, why small start-ups can leapfrog traditional leaders, and how lead adopters are flying so fast that laggard may never catch up. Leadership before modern AI will be fundamentally different from leadership going forward. Bryan introduces "cathedral thinking" versus "strip mining" in how we need to build AI systems designed to last decades, not just solve today's problems. AI won't automate away the things we love doing: creativity, art, poetry, music. The goal is amplifying human creativity, not replacing it. Essential listening for anyone navigating AI adoption, wondering whether job loss predictions are overstated, or trying to understand how to make AI actually useful rather than just impressive. AI Ethics Now Exploring the ethical dilemmas of AI in Higher Education and beyond. A University of Warwick IATL Podcast This podcast series was developed by Dr Tom Ritchie and Dr Jennie Mills, the module leads of the ⁠ at the University of Warwick. The ⁠IATL module ⁠"The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology, and Society"⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ module explores the history, current state, and potential futures of artificial intelligence, examining its profound impact on society, individuals, and the very definition of 'humanness.' This podcast was initially designed to provide a deeper dive into the key themes explored each week in class. We want to share the discussions we have had to help offer a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence to a wider audience. Join each fortnight for new critical conversations on AI Ethics with local, national, and international experts. We will discuss: Ethical Dimensions of AI: Fairness, bias, transparency, and accountabilitySocietal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanityThe Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanityIf you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk.

    26 min
  7. 16. AI and Evidence: When Nobody is Accountable

    Mar 16

    16. AI and Evidence: When Nobody is Accountable

    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. Craig introduces a concept with profound implications for anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of a formal process - the confident confabulation. Large language models don't flag uncertainty. They don't interrogate the premise of the question they're asked. They reflect back whatever narrative they're fed, dressed in language that carries the appearance of authority and expertise. The result can be devastating. And the frameworks for accountability when it goes wrong are, at best, underdeveloped. This conversation explores how sycophantic AI reflects back and amplifies the narratives it receives, how AI generated analysis gets laundered into apparently human authored reports, and what it means when confident confabulations enter high stakes processes where people's lives and reputations are at stake. Craig returns throughout to two words. Legitimacy - does the process that produced this output have any genuine claim to being a reliable account of what actually happened? And accountability - when a confident confabulation causes real harm to a real person, who answers for that? Not the AI. Not the platform. Not the person who fed it the narrative and accepted what it reflected back without question. Currently, the answer is nobody. AI Ethics Now Exploring the ethical dilemmas of AI in Higher Education and beyond. A University of Warwick IATL Podcast This podcast series was developed by Dr Tom Ritchie and Dr Jennie Mills, the module leads of the ⁠ at the University of Warwick. The IATL module ⁠"The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology, and Society"⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ module explores the history, current state, and potential futures of artificial intelligence, examining its profound impact on society, individuals, and the very definition of 'humanness.' This podcast was initially designed to provide a deeper dive into the key themes explored each week in class. We want to share the discussions we have had to help offer a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence to a wider audience. Join each fortnight for new critical conversations on AI Ethics with local, national, and international experts. We will discuss: Ethical Dimensions of AI: Fairness, bias, transparency, and accountabilitySocietal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanityThe Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanityIf you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk.

    27 min
  8. 15. AI and the Campus Revolution: When Students Outpace Their Universities

    Mar 2

    15. AI and the Campus Revolution: When Students Outpace Their Universities

    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 improved grades, the data raises urgent questions about what we are actually measuring when we talk about academic success in an AI-augmented world. This conversation explores whether better grades signal deeper learning or simply more polished outputs, why the race to detect AI-generated work is one institutions are already losing, and what it would mean to genuinely redesign assessment for an AI-enabled generation. Marni and Jack also make a compelling case that AI, if intentionally designed, has the potential to strengthen belonging and reduce equity gaps rather than widen them, pointing to evidence from Coursera's own platform that underserved learners are among the most active users of AI tutoring tools. We discuss the tension between student enthusiasm and educator anxiety, why fewer than a third of UK universities have a formal AI policy despite the scale of adoption, and what it means for institutions to move from reactive policies to proactive frameworks that put faculty confidence and student equity at the centre. AI Ethics Now Exploring the ethical dilemmas of AI in Higher Education and beyond. A University of Warwick IATL Podcast This podcast series was developed by Dr Tom Ritchie and Dr Jennie Mills, the module leads of the ⁠ at the University of Warwick. The AI Revolution module explores the history, current state, and potential futures of artificial intelligence, examining its profound impact on society, individuals, and the very definition of 'humanness.' This podcast was initially designed to provide a deeper dive into the key themes explored each week in class. We want to share the discussions we have had to help offer a broader, interdisciplinary perspective on the ethical and societal implications of artificial intelligence to a wider audience. Join each fortnight for new critical conversations on AI Ethics with local, national, and international experts. We will discuss: Ethical Dimensions of AI: Fairness, bias, transparency, and accountabilitySocietal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanityThe Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanityIf you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk.

    17 min
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About

AI Ethics Now is a podcast dedicated to exploring the complex issues surrounding artificial intelligence from a non-specialist perspective, including bias, ethics, privacy, and accountability. Join us as we discuss the challenges and opportunities of AI and work towards a future where technology benefits society as a whole. This podcast idea was first developed by Dr Tom Ritchie and Dr Jennie Mills as part of The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology, and Society module, taught as part of IATL at the University of Warwick.

Information

  • Creator
    Tom Ritchie, IATL, WIHEA, University of Warwick
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    42
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Tom Ritchie, IATL, WIHEA, University of Warwick
  • Show Website
    AI Ethics Now

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