Carissa Veliz Profile Picture

Keynote SpeakerCarissa Veliz

Associate Professor in Philosophy at the Institute for Ethics in AI, Fellow at Hertford College, University of Oxford

Carissa Véliz is an award-winning author, an Associate Professor at the Institute for Ethics in AI, and a Fellow at Hertford College, University of Oxford. Her work focuses on digital ethics, with an emphasis on privacy and AI ethics, as well as practical ethics, political philosophy, and public policy. She... Read More

Biography

Carissa Véliz is an award-winning author, an Associate Professor at the Institute for Ethics in AI, and a Fellow at Hertford College, University of Oxford.

Her work focuses on digital ethics, with an emphasis on privacy and AI ethics, as well as practical ethics, political philosophy, and public policy.

She has been a member of the Group of Experts in charge of drafting a Digital Rights Charter at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation in Spain. She is a witness to the House of Lords Communications and Digital Select Committee, on freedom of expression and public policy, as well as a member of the High-Level Advisory Panel on Technology and Global Order at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Spain.

Carissa has published articles in The Guardian, The New York Times, New Statesman, The Independent and El País. Her academic work has been published in The Harvard Business Review, Nature Electronics, Nature Energy, AI & Society and The American Journal of Bioethics, among others.

Carissa Véliz is the author of ‘Privacy Is Power’, an Economist Book of the Year. The book argues that people should protect their privacy because privacy is a kind of power. If we give too much of our data to corporations, the wealthy will rule. If we give too much personal data to governments, we risk sliding into authoritarianism. For democracy to be strong, the bulk of power needs to be with the citizenry, and whoever has the data has the power: “Privacy is not a personal preference; it is a political concern”.

She believes personal data is a toxic asset and should be regulated as if it were a toxic substance. Carissa is also the editor of the Oxford Handbook of Digital Ethics. She collaborates with private and public institutions as a consultant.

Popular Talks by Carissa Veliz

  • Privacy Is Power
  • Ethics in AI
  • The case for ending the data economy
  • Cyber security
  • Technology and public policy
  • What digital ethics can learn from medical ethics?
  • Social media and free speech
  • Tech's impact on business, politics, and society
  • Can algorithms be moral agents?
  • Why do we need ethics when we have the law?