CCAIS Researcher Presents to Parliament

Dr Sarah Kiden, Research Fellow in CCAIS and Responsible AI UK at the University of Southampton, was invited as a witness to deliver oral evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights at the Parliament on “Human Rights and the Regulation of AI” on Wednesday, 29 October 2025. Michael Birtwistle, Associate Director (Law & Policy), Ada Lovelace Institute, and Professor Kevin Fong from The Artificial Human podcast were also on the panel. 

In her response, Dr Kiden explained how AI is a complex, fast-evolving area that is fundamentally different from other current day technologies. Supplementing a prior written response by the team, she highlighted that AI can be a threat to human rights, for example when used in  age assessments for asylum seekers. A key general challenge for AI is data bias, which needs to be addressed before deployment. She also discussed how responsibility for failures and harms needs to be considered and attributed at different stages of the AI lifecycle from design, development, training to deployment. Emphasising the importance of co-design with the public, Dr Kiden gave the example of the AI Otherwise project, which she is leading to explore public perceptions of AI using story completion. She highlighted some of the concerns of the public and the positive role which government can play by designing appropriate regulations. She also discussed the importance of having good metrics to evaluate AI systems and highlighted how it can be difficult in settings like cultural alignment of AI, where the public opinion of AI outcomes is highly subjective and qualitative. 

Dr Kiden concluded with the following four recommendations:
i) to have a holistic view of AI, understanding both its capabilities and risks,
ii) to determine what success looks like what happens when things go wrong,
iii) to develop stronger links between technologists and policymakers and,
iv) to increase investment in public engagement and AI literacy.  

A full video recording of the event is available here: https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/eef5b87c-0ba8-43bb-908b-8125b8077d33

Dr Kiden was invited based on written evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights by the RAi UK and CCAIS teams, which you can read here: https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/148309/pdf/