Kay Firth-Butterfield is the CEO of Good Tech Advisory. She is the former Head of Artificial Intelligence and member of the Executive Committee at the World Economic Forum and is one of the foremost experts in the world on the governance of AI.
She is a Barrister, former Judge and Professor, technologist and entrepreneur who has an abiding interest in how humanity can equitably benefit from new technologies, especially AI. She co-founded the Responsible AI Institute and was the world’s first Chief AI Ethics officer in 2014. Kay is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Texas and the author of books on Human Rights, AI and Modern Slavery. Kay is Vice-Chair of The IEEE Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems and was part of the group which met at Asilomar to create the Asilomar AI Ethical Principles. She sits on the Polaris Council for the Government Accountability Office (USA), the Advisory Board for UNESCO International Research Centre on AI, the Advisory Board for international company ADI, EarthSpecies and AI4All. Kay has advanced degrees in Law and International Relations and regularly speaks to international audiences addressing many aspects of the beneficial and challenging technical, economic and social changes arising from the use of AI. Kay is an Associate Barrister (Doughty Street Chambers), Master of the Inner Temple, London and served on the Lord Chief Justice’s Advisory Panel on AI and Law.
She has been consistently recognized as a leading woman in AI since 2018 and was featured in the New York Times as one of 10 Women Changing the Landscape of Leadership. She is also a recipient of the TIME 100 Impact Award: On Harnessing Responsible AI.
