Lovelace-Hodgkin Symposium 2026

Our Vision

Our work is rooted in the belief that conversations about technology, ethics and society should be open to everyone. Artificial intelligence is already shaping education, work, research, culture, communities and the environment. Its impacts are too important to be left only to technical or academic spaces.

Co-created by Ciorsdaidh Watts and Lydia Bach, the Lovelace-Hodgkin Symposium has grown into a wider ecosystem of grassroots education, dialogue, creative practice and community engagement. As AI Ethics, Literacy & Impact Theme Leads within the Centre for Data Science & AI, we are working to connect institutional strategy with lived experience, grassroots innovation and public dialogue. Across this work, our aim is to create spaces where people can ask questions, share experience, build confidence and take part in shaping more responsible technological futures.

 

Lovelace-Hodgkin Symposium 

The Lovelace-Hodgkin Symposium is our annual grassroots event on AI ethics and society. Each year, it brings together people from different disciplines, sectors and communities to explore the social, ethical and human dimensions of emerging technologies.

The 2026 symposium, Making the Invisible, Visible: AI, Stories, Power & Participation, asks what technology hides, what it reveals, whose stories are heard and who gets to participate. Through talks, interactive sessions, games, creative work, exhibitions and documentary, the symposium invites researchers, students, practitioners, artists, community groups and the wider public into shared conversation.

Art is central to this year’s vision. We are creating space for creative responses from societies, community partners, book club members and local artists, with the hope of exhibiting this work both during the symposium and, where possible, afterwards. These creative outputs are not an add-on to the programme; they are part of how we think, question and make visible the systems, stories and experiences that are often overlooked.

Following the symposium, we are running a Wikiathon as part of our commitment to making the invisible visible. By creating and improving entries for underrepresented people, histories and contributions, particularly in the context of AI, the Wikiathon asks who is remembered, who is searchable and whose knowledge becomes part of the public record. It is both a practical intervention and a reflection on visibility, representation and power.

 

Children’s Wood and Community Mapping

Our collaboration with the Children’s Wood Charity brings these themes into local community space. Through ticket donations from the 2026 symposium, we hope to support a small community-led mapping project connected to the woods. The aim is to explore how people who use and care for the space can help map, understand and represent it themselves.

This work connects to questions of mapping, visibility and the view from above, but also to something broader: who gets to describe a place, and on whose terms? It offers a local example of how technology, creativity and community knowledge can come together thoughtfully.

 

AI Ethics Book Club

The AI Ethics Book Club, launched in March 2026, creates a regular space for interdisciplinary discussion, reflection and creative response. The group takes a democratic approach to choosing material and encourages members to respond through conversation, visual thinking and creative outputs.

The book club has welcomed guest facilitators including Dr Eleanor Drage and Dr Beryl Pong from the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge. Through reading, discussion and art-making, it helps cultivate a community of practice that is reflective, experimental and open to different forms of expertise.

We hope to continue developing opportunities for book club members and contributors to share their creative responses more widely, including through exhibition space connected to the symposium and future online activity.

 

AI Ethics, Inclusion & Society MOOC

The AI Ethics, Inclusion & Society MOOC extends this work to a global audience. Hosted on FutureLearn, the course supports learners to think critically about technology, inclusion and social impact. Since launching in May 2025, it has reached more than 1,500 learners across academia, industry, education and the public sector, with strong engagement and feedback.

Learners have described the course as 'academically rigorous', with 'really thoughtful examples and activities that encourage ethical learning'. Another participant reflected: 'We need to take care of ourselves and knowing a lot more about AI will go a long way towards that end'.

 really thoughtful examples and activities that encourage ethical learning

Together with our student interns, we continue to develop and improve the course materials. Its success reflects the growing need for accessible learning resources that help people understand emerging technologies in thoughtful, inclusive and socially responsible ways.

 

AI Ethics, Literacy & Impact

Our role as AI Ethics, Literacy & Impact Theme Leads within the Centre for Data Science & AI brings these strands together. The aim is to support a more connected approach to responsible innovation: one that values technical excellence, but also makes space for ethical reflection, inclusive literacy, creative practice, public engagement and lived experience.

Our longer vision is to help strengthen the Centre as a place where innovation is held together with social responsibility. We want to support work that is not only powerful, but accountable; not only efficient, but inclusive; not only future-facing, but attentive to histories, communities and real-world impacts.

This page offers an overview of our current work and the wider direction we are building towards. More information about the symposium, book club, MOOC, Wikiathon, community mapping project and opportunities to contribute will be made available as we are developing our website. We are always keen to hear from people who would like to take part, collaborate, share work or help shape future activity.