Visiting Scholar
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Biography
Kay Firth-Butterfield joined the University of Notre Dame’s Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society in Fall 2024 as a visiting scholar.
She started her working life as a Barrister-at-Law in England. Her legal career which culminated with a part-time appointment as a Judge gives her a unique insight into Technology Governance both through regulation and case law.
In 2008 she moved to the USA to be a Professor and concentrate on her work on human rights and human trafficking, she published a book arising from this research in 2011. The last chapter of the book considered the interaction of humans and intelligent machines.
In 2014, she became the World’s first Chief AI Ethics Officer. This was for an AI start up in Austin, Texas, where she was tasked with setting up an Ethics Advisory Panel and helping staff to navigate the responsible development of their product.
By 2017 she had become a leading figure in Responsible AI and was head hunted to join the World Economic Forum to start in the role of Head of the AI and Machine Learning platform. Over the next six years she led a team of staff as well as Fellows seconded to the work from business, civil society, government and academia, to create guidelines, playbooks, and other materials which could be used by organisations creating a Responsible Technology culture in AI, Technology and Quantum Computing.
