AI Ethics Now

About AI Ethics Now

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.

Publisher

Tom Ritchie, IATL, WIHEA, University of Warwick

Category

education

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

3 Jan 2025

Latest episode

4 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

48 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   4 Oct 2026

   8. AI and Chatbots: Who Checks What They Tell Students?

   What happens when the chatbot answering your applicants gets it wrong, and nobody notices? In this episode, I speak with Martha Horler (https://www.linkedin.com/in/marthahorler/), founder of Sparkline Advisory (https://www.linkedin.com/company/sparkline-advisory/posts/?feedView=all) and known to many in the sector as the data goddess. Martha has spent two decades in UK higher education working in student data, statutory returns, digital systems and organisational change. She started out answering the phone to students in programme administration. She now supports institutions with data governance, digital strategy and AI literacy. Martha developed the ICE/BERG (https://sparklineadvisory.com/data_lab/iceberg_framework/) framework after noticing that the questions coming out of her AI training sessions had little to do with prompting. People wanted to know if they could put student data in, which tools were safe, whether they would be replaced, and whether they could trust what came out. The tip of the iceberg is the everyday cycle of intention, communication and evaluation. Underneath sit boundaries, ethics, risk and governance. Sustainability, added after a conversation with a colleague in further education, is the sea it floats in. Much of our conversation focuses on Martha's case study of an applicant enquiry chatbot. Chatbots feel familiar, so they get treated as low risk. But they talk to many people at once. When Martha got something wrong on the phone, a colleague could correct her. A chatbot might give the same wrong answer to hundreds of applicants first. We talk about what happens when policy changes quickly, as it did during the pandemic, who in a university should own keeping these tools up to date, and why the responsibility stays with the institution rather than the vendor. Martha also makes the point that if a chatbot is the only way to get an answer, the applicant never chose to use AI at all. She is open about where the framework falls short, especially for procured systems where the vendor has already decided how the tool behaves. And she ends with a case for engaging with AI rather than ignoring it, knowing what it should and shouldn't be used for, and keeping up as the technology shifts. Essential listening for anyone working in student services, data, digital strategy or AI policy in higher education. You can read Martha's chatbot case study here (https://sparklineadvisory.com/data_lab/chatbots-ice-berg-application/). 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, lead of The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology, and Society (https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/study/iatlugmodules/theairevolutionethicstechnologyandsociety/) at the University of Warwick and Elon University. The ⁠ 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 accountability Societal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanity The Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanity If you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk

2. 

   20 Sept 2026

   7. AI & Us: A Musical Journey Through Human Identity in the Age of AI

   A camera isn't the photographer. So what is AI, when it's the tool behind the art? In this episode, I speak with Glenn Stockton (https://www.cosmicbackyard.com), a retired entrepreneur, photographer, and grandfather of ten who has lived through every major digital shift of the last 45 years, from early Macintosh computers to launching one of the first internet businesses in 1997. Glenn is the creator of AI and Us (https://www.cosmicbackyard.com), a five-song musical journey exploring AI consciousness, creativity, digital companionship, conflict, and what it means to stay human in the age of intelligent machines. He comes to AI ethics not as a technologist but as a songwriter interested in what this moment reveals about truth, relationship, and what makes us human. Rather than a standard interview, this episode moves through the arc song by song, weaving in clips from each track as the conversation unfolds. Glenn argues that the deepest questions AI raises aren't technical but human: what happens to truth, to relationships, to art and creativity, to faith. The arc moves from possibility ("Another Way to Speak," on AI as a new language for human expression) through connection and its dangers ("One Song," on unity without uniformity) to deception ("Counterfeit Light," on content that convinces by resembling truth rather than by force) and responsibility ("The Danger Was Not Born in Code," locating AI's risks in the human flaws it amplifies, not in the technology itself), before closing with "Stay Human," a song Glenn's wife Laurie unexpectedly reframed as a love song, on preserving human relationship at the centre of an AI-driven world. The conversation also explores the tension, or lack of it, in using AI tools (ChatGPT, Suno, ElevenLabs, Descript, and Kling) to create work that is itself about AI's dangers and responsibilities. Drawing a line between AI as instrument and AI as author, Glenn makes the case that AI was not the storyteller for this project, only the tool that let him tell it. He closes with reflections on what it will take to build a more positive AI future: ethics taught alongside literacy, honest labelling of synthetic media, and above all, human wisdom keeping pace with human capability. Essential listening for anyone thinking about creativity, authenticity, or what it means to stay human at a moment when so much is being automated. You can listen to the full AI and Us song series at CosmicBackyard.com (https://www.cosmicbackyard.com), under the AI & Us menu link. 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, module lead of ⁠⁠⁠The AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology and Society⁠⁠⁠ (https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/study/iatlugmodules/theairevolutionethicstechnologyandsociety/) at the University of Warwick and Elon University. The ⁠ 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 accountability Societal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanity The Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanity If you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk

3. 

   6 Sept 2026

   6. AI and Hope: Rewiring Universities for Human Flourishing

   What is AI actually revealing about us as humans? And what would it mean to build institutions that help us become more human, not less? In this episode, I speak with Dr Jessica Riddell (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-riddell-08aa5722/), Professor of Early Modern Literature at Bishop's University (https://www.linkedin.com/school/bishop), Quebec, where she holds the Stephen A. Jarislowsky Chair of Undergraduate Teaching Excellence. Jessica is the founder of the Hope Circuits Institute (https://www.jessicariddell.com/hc-book-series) and author of Hope Circuits: Rewiring Universities and Other Systems for Human Flourishing (https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Hope_Circuits.html?id=7BDtEAAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y), as well as co-author of Shakespeare's Guide to Life, Hope and Learning (https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Shakespeare_s_Guide_to_Hope_Life_Learnin.html?id=AA6yzwEACAAJ&redir_esc=y). She comes to AI ethics not as a technologist but as a Shakespeare scholar interested in what this moment reveals about hope, integrity, and human flourishing. Jessica argues that AI hasn't caused higher education's integrity gaps so much as exposed them, from the instant leap to surveillance and policing when ChatGPT arrived, to decades of running universities on "machine logic": optimisation, metrics, and efficiency at the expense of purpose. She makes the case for treating institutions as ecosystems rather than machines, and for protecting "deliberate inefficiencies," friction, bewilderment, productive struggle, as a superpower rather than a flaw. The conversation also builds on Jessica's session ("Writing as Excavation: Teaching Writing With and Not Against Gen AI") at the Transatlantic Teaching Exchange Series (https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/academy/international/ttes/) I ran as part of my Fulbright Exchange. In this discussion, she walks through a classroom exercise where students wrote messy, handwritten thoughts each week, then fed their own writing into AI to surface patterns in how their thinking had developed. The result was a "warped mirror," useful, but also a reminder of what AI flattens out. Drawing on her friend Paul Yachnin's idea that theatre is the original LLM, but the opposite of AI because it stages questions without resolving them, Jessica makes the case for hope as a discipline, not optimism, and for building universities as "rehearsal spaces for creative futures" rather than futureproofing against an imagined threat. Essential listening for anyone thinking about institutional purpose, academic integrity, or what it means to stay human at a moment when so much is being automated. 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 AI Revolution: Ethics, Technology and Society⁠⁠ (https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/study/iatlugmodules/theairevolutionethicstechnologyandsociety/) at the University of Warwick. The ⁠ 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 accountability Societal Implications: How AI is transforming industries, economies, and our understanding of humanity The Future of AI: Potential benefits, risks, and shaping a future where AI serves humanity If you want to join the podcast as a guest, contact Tom.Ritchie@warwick.ac.uk

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