Technomoral Conversations: What’s the Story with AI? AI Narratives and Counter-narratives
11th February 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM GMT
The Technomoral Conversations series brings together leaders, creators and innovators from academia, technology, business and the third sector in a ‘fireside chat’ format to discuss futures that are worth wanting.
Join us for the latest event in our Technomoral Conversations series: What’s the Story with AI? Exploring AI Narratives and Counter-Narratives.
During this fireside chat, we will hear critical insights from experts across academia and industry on the dominant narratives surrounding AI, and what alternative stories can be and are being told about AI and its place in our futures.
Chaired by Dr Alex Taylor (University of Edinburgh), this Technomoral Conversation will feature Dr Abeba Birhane (Trinity College Dublin), Steph Wright, (co-founder and managing director of Our AI Collective CIC), and John Thornhill (Financial Times)!
This event is a collaboration between the Centre for Technomoral Futures, the Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID) Programme and Edinburgh Futures Institute.
Speaker Biographies
Dr Alex Taylor is a sociologist with a fascination for the relations between machines and social life, and what possibilities technoscientific entanglements might create for fundamental transformations in society. He’s currently a Reader in Design Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, and an AHRC BRAID fellow focusing on the operationalising of responsibility. He is also a fellow of the RSA, and holds visiting roles at the University of Sweden and City, University of London.
Dr Abeba Birhane founded and leads the TCD AI Accountability Lab (AIAL). She is an assistant professor of AI at the School of Computer Science and Statistics in Trinity College Dublin. Dr Birhane researches AI accountability with a particular focus on audits of AI models and training datasets – work for which she was featured in Wired UK and TIME on the TIME100 Most Influential People in AI list in 2023. Dr Birhane also served on the United Nations Secretary-General’s AI Advisory Body and currently serves at the AI Advisory Council in Ireland.
Steph Wright has a diverse background ranging from astrophysics to genomics in academia and film & TV to dance in the arts and the third sector. A project and programme management professional, she loves to develop and build collaborations across organisations to help people with their data/AI journey. She is co-founder and managing director of Our AI Collective CIC, which works to empower communities to shape AI’s future and strengthen civic power in the age of AI. Steph was recognised as one of the 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics in 2023, one of the Top 10 Women in Tech in Scotland in 2023 and recently named in the 2025 Digital Leaders AI 100 UK list. She was also awarded the 2024 DataIQ Award for Data & AI For Good Champion.
John Thornhill is the Innovation Editor and Tech Columnist at the Financial Times where he writes a weekly award-winning column on the impact of technology with a particular focus on AI. He is also the founder and editorial director of Sifted, the FT-backed site for European startups, and a host of Tech Tonic, the FT’s technology podcast.
John was previously deputy editor and news editor of the FT in London. He has also been Europe editor, Paris bureau chief, Asia editor, Moscow correspondent and Lex columnist. He is a board member of the Ada Lovelace Institute.
