Consultancy · Tech & digital ethics
Search, AI and digital ethics.
I work with teams on the ethical and cultural questions raised by search and AI. Together, we examine how a system represents people, organises information and explains its decisions.
The question this track answers
What is this system asking people to trust?
We make the assumptions, exclusions and explanations visible enough for a product or policy team to decide what to change.
I have advised Canvas8 as a consultant and expert contributor. Between 2014 and 2017 I was an academic partner to a Silicon Valley start-up, exploring how natural language processing might measure trustworthiness online.
How I can help
Where would you like to start?
Search & AI ethics scoping audit
A bounded review of a product, feature, or policy against bias, transparency, and ethical-design criteria, ending in a prioritised findings report.
Ethical design review & report
A deeper review of a specific system or roadmap, with clear, named recommendations you can act on.
AI literacy workshop
A practical session that gives your team the vocabulary and judgement to examine the choices involved in using and designing these systems.
How it works
What you get at the end.
We start with a short scoping conversation. I review the relevant materials, your tool, feature, policy, or design documentation, and come back with a written report: what I found, what matters most, and what to do about it. I can join at any stage of development, and follow up as you act on it.
This work rests on a decade of research into how search and AI organise knowledge. That includes my book Investigating Google's Search Engine (Bloomsbury, 2023) and the Open Search Foundation’s #FreeWebSearch Charter, which I co-authored.