2025 Session
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Thursday, October 29, 2026
IS AI GOING TO KILL US ALL?
Artificial Intelligence
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10:00 am
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10:40 am
29 Oct 2026
Tobacco Dock, London
Tobacco Dock, London
Between utopian promises and existential warnings, it can be difficult to separate genuine AI risk from speculation. This debate brings together contrasting perspectives on safety, power, environmental impact and human control. How worried should we be, who should be accountable and what action is justified before the most serious predictions become possible?
Professor of Philosophy & Ethics Lead In Safe AI Systems, University of York - Spokesperson Pull the plug
At the University of York my primary responsibilities are as Convenor of the MA in Applied Ethics and Governance of Data Privacy and as Ethics Lead for the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Safe AI Systems (SAINTS). My purely philosophical research currently focuses on the structure and justification of moral theory. I have also written, spoken and given expert opinion on digital states, digital sovereignty, existential risk, and deepfakes. I am an active campaigner for greater democratic control over the way AI is deployed in our society, with particular attention to the social and environmental harms of the UK strategy, and a spokesperson for the campaign group Pull the Plug.
Hameed Adigun is Co-Founder of Black AI Futures (BAIF), the UK's first Black-led AI for Good Network, and runs Aivian Ltd, an AI consultancy collective and has built RonuNest, an immersive simulation learning platform for workforce training that proves competency.
BAIF is a parliamentary initiative that brings community lived evidence into the rooms where AI policy is made, to keep AI fair and equitable, not built for the few. Supported by Dawn Butler MP, Vice Chair of the AI APPG.
Hameed works at the intersection of AI policy, community advocacy, and commercial delivery, making sure the communities AI affects first are the ones shaping what comes next.
Estelle Uba is a multimedia journalist, media entrepreneur, social researcher and communications specialist focused on storytelling at the intersection of race, society, business, culture and tech.
She is co-founder of Culture in Motion (@culture.inmotion), a Pan-African visual storytelling platform exploring stories, history and culture across the African diaspora.
Estelle is currently Primary Researcher at BLAM UK’s AI & Digital Policing Accountability Project, investigating racial bias in AI-driven policing systems, while also working as a freelance journalist and communications specialist. Her work has been featured in The Guardian, The Voice, Refinery29 and Black Ballad, and she previously worked as Multimedia Reporter at impact business magazine Pioneers Post.
She holds an MA in International Journalism from City, University of London.
Roger Hallam is a well-known rebel and someone with first-hand experience of civil resistance, and was ranked as the 34th most influential person shaping Britain’s progressive politics by The New Statesman, 2023. He researched the dynamics of mass mobilisations at King's College for five years and has been at the forefront of climate campaigning for many years. He is the co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, probably the world’s most high-profile climate crisis movement. His actions are grounded in a belief that peaceful public disruption is effective and justified in the face of social collapse as the crisis escalates. Roger has been involved in many acts of civil disobedience, leading to over thirty arrests and four periods of imprisonment. Roger is also the author of “Common Sense For The 21st Century: Only Nonviolent Rebellion Can Now Stop Climate Breakdown And Social Collapse”.
