Shaping AI, Shaping Ourselves: Thinking Together with Shannon Vallor
Saturday, 25 April
16:30 – 17:15
Room: Salle de Guichets
As the programme comes to a close, this session invites participants to step back and reflect on a deeper question: what does AI reveal about us, and what kind of societies do we want to build in response? Drawing on the ideas of The AI Mirror, Shannon Vallor will explore how AI not only shapes our world but also reflects our values, assumptions, and inequalities back to us. Moving from reflection to action, the conversation will consider how these technologies are reshaping human agency, democratic participation, and political responsibility- and where space still exists to resist, rethink, and redirect their trajectory. The session will be open and interactive, leaving room for collective reflection and audience exchange.
Prof. Shannon Vallor, Co-Director, Centre for Technomoral Futures, author The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking
Prof. Shannon Vallor is the Baillie Gifford Chair of the Ethics of Data and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Edinburgh, where she serves as Co-Director of the Centre for Technomoral Futures and the UKRI BRAID (Bridging Responsible AI Divides) programme. Professor Vallor’s research explores how AI and robotics reshape human character and capabilities. She is a former AI Ethicist at Google, a standing member of Stanford University’s 100-Year Study of Artificial Intelligence, and the 2026 recipient of the Barwise Prize from the American Philosophical Association. Her most recent book is The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking (Oxford University Press 2024).
Moderator: Seden Anlar, Journalist, Climate Communicator
Seden Anlar is a Brussels-based multimedia journalist, moderator, and podcast producer focused on human rights and holding power to account through storytelling. Over the past eight years, she has produced more than a dozen podcasts on climate, migration, social, and tech justice—reaching over 200,000 listeners across Europe and beyond, combining rigorous reporting with audience-centred storytelling to connect the dots between borders, histories, and movements.
