Working with the RSPCA

One of my more innovative new year pledges is to actually talk about the work I do. So here goes.

I’m working with the RSPCA at the moment, kickstarting a responsible AI initiative. I’ve been reviewing a new AI-driven project for ethical risks and opportunities, and helping define the artefacts and mentalities the organisation needs to adopt to embed responsibility in its future tech work. As part of this, we ran some training just before the break, covering some overlooked aspects of responsible tech and encouraging stakeholders to discuss which issues matter most to their context. It went well. The hope is to nurture a working group that can take the reins in scaling responsible tech past this initial discovery phase.

This project is particularly up my street, firstly because the organisation’s cause – making sure all animals have a good life – is meaningful and important to me. Secondly, there’s a dynamic I enjoy: committed individual contributors who get it while recognising good intentions don’t scale without robust policies, processes, and commitments. Hopefully when things wrap up in late February I’ll be able to give an update on what we did and what’s next for the RSPCA’s ethical tech journey.