AI Seminar
We are delighted to welcome Virginia Dignum, Professor of Responsible Artificial Intelligence at Umeå University, Sweden, to our upcoming AI seminar entitled The AI paradox – A guide for responsible humans.
This seminar will take place in person (Room TBC), on Monday 1st March 2027, 13.15pm-14.15pm (GMT). There is also an option to join online. Marina De Vos will chair. For more information, please e-mail [email protected].
Title
The AI paradox – A guide for responsible humans
Abstract
AI is often presented as either a promise or a threat, as if its future were technological destiny. In this talk, drawn from my new book The AI Paradox (Princeton University Press, 2026), I argue that the more capable AI becomes, the more we depend on human judgment, responsibility and collective choice. Organizing the discussion around paradoxes, I address why less bias is not always more justice, why disagreement on what AI is matters for governance, and why the central risk is not superintelligence but the abdication of human responsibility. The talk closes with a call to treat AI as a matter of political and moral choice, not inevitability.
Bio
Virginia Dignum is Professor of Responsible Artificial Intelligence at Umeå University, Sweden, where she leads the AI Policy Lab. She is also senior advisor on AI policy to the Wallenberg Foundations and chair of the ACM’s Technology Policy Council. She has a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from Utrecht University (2004), was appointed Wallenberg Scholar in 2024, is member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA), and a Fellow of the European Artificial Intelligence Association (EURAI), and of ELLIS (European Laboratory of Learning and Intelligent Systems). She is also co-chair of the IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems 2.0, member of the UNESCO’s expert group on the implementation of AI recommendations, the OECD’s Expert group on AI, and founder of ALLAI, the Dutch AI Alliance. She has been a member of the United Nations Advisory Body on AI, the EU’s High Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence, co-chair of the WEF’s Global Future Council on AI, and leader of UNICEF’s guidance for AI and children. In 2026, she received the Nordic DAIR Awards Lifetime Achievement in AI. She has over 300 peer-reviewed articles in major international journals, conferences and workshops, with in total over 30000 citations. Her new book “The AI Paradox” (2026) is published by Princeton University Press.
