Nell Watson
Eleanor ‘Nell’ Watson CITP FBCS FIAP FIKE FRSA FRSS FCMI FLS is a Machine Intelligence engineer who worked to pioneer Deep Machine Vision at her company QuantaCorp, which enables fast and accurate body measurement from just two photos.
In sharing her knowledge as AI Faculty at Singularity University and author of Machine Intelligence courseware for O’Reilly Media, she realised the importance of protecting human rights and putting ethics, safety, and the values of human spirit into A.I.
Nell serves as Chair & Vice-Chair respectively of the IEEE’s ECPAIS Transparency Experts Focus Group, and P7001 Transparency of Autonomous Systems committee on AI Ethics & Safety, engineering credit score-like mechanisms to safeguard algorithmic trust.
She also chairs EthicsNet.org, a community teaching pro-social behaviours to machines, CulturalPeace.org, crafting Geneva Conventions-style rules for cultural conflict, and Pacha.org, connecting a network of service providers to help enable the automated accounting of externalities such as pollution.
Nell serves as Senior Scientific Advisor to The Future Society at Harvard, and holds Fellowships from the British Computing Society, and Royal Statistical Society, among others.
Nell is also Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, where she works to develop practical solutions for today’s most pressing issues, in politics, economics, technology, and beyond, working across disciplines and topics.
Her public speaking has inspired audiences to work towards a brighter future at venues such as The World Bank, The United Nations General Assembly, and The Royal Society.
The content was quite provocative, which is what I had wanted. Her slides were beautiful. And her delivery was flawless. It was so obvious how much time she put into it and how much pride she takes in what she does. And audience feedback has been extremely positive. I would not hesitate to recommend her. She’s a pro!
— Kate Hawley, TEDxSonomaCounty (California)
Some of her presentation topics:
HIT THE GROUND RUNNING WITH A.I.
Machine Intelligence is as big a disruption as electricity was in the 20th century. It can seem confusing and hard to implement. This talk gives an overview of various terms and concepts, a timeline running from the past to the near future, and a crash course on how to practically implement AI within your business to create new opportunities.
CRYPTOMICS
A smarter, kinder, and trustworthy way to build a better world. This talk explores the latest developments in Machine Intelligence, Machine Economics (Blockchain, DHT, etc), and the emerging discipline of Machine Ethics. The confluence of these three domains with the Internet of Things is creating revolutionary new ways of organising society, and building trust between individuals and institutions. This can enable a massive increase in global human wellbeing in the coming decade – if we get it right.
EXPONENTIAL ETHOS
Our global society is experiencing an immense shift: Entire industries once considered ‘bricks and mortar’, such as taxi rides and hotel rooms, are being transformed into digital powerhouses. Physical objects are becoming dematerialised, democratised, and dynamically distributed to all, at ever decreasing costs, and incredible value. Understanding the vast, disruptive power of exponential factors, and how to make effective use of them to amplify ones’ activities, is the fundamental key skill for enjoying massive business, technical, and societal success this century.
MACHINE ETHICS
The emerging field of machine ethics offers a revolution in how ethical analyses and transactions can occur. By making ethical decisions computable, we can give a sense of morality to machine intelligence, such as autonomous vehicles and personal assistants. Learn how we can best program these fuzzy aspects of ‘humanity’ into machine intelligence, in a way which respects differences of opinion and creeds, and yet provides adequate protection for humans and machines.
HUMANIZING MACHINES
Intelligent machines are beginning to understand the needs, drives, and even values of humanity, with huge opportunities for each of our lives and our global society. These technologies can transform our communities, making our world more safe and secure, and helping us to manage precious resources in new ways. how can we make the most of these capabilities, and ensure that the spirit and wisdom of the human isn’t lost in a sea of cold algorithms? How can we retain our humanity, whilst growing past our greatest weaknesses?
Showreel Nell Watson, January 2018
Nell at The Next Web, 2016
Nell Watson IOP Presentation NYC, 2016
Nell at TEDxSonomaCounty (California)
Nell at The Media Evolution Conference Malmö, 2014