In this episode, hosts Michael Mainelli and Adam Leon Smith welcome James Gealy, Standardization Lead at Safer AI, a French NGO focused on AI risk modelling. With a background in spacecraft testing and operations at Northrop Grumman and Airbus, James brings hard-earned lessons from high-stakes risk and quality management, inspired by the Challenger disaster, into the world of AI standards.

James discusses Safer AI’s pioneering risk modelling work on how frontier models like Claude’s Mythos could amplify cyber threats, benchmark saturation, and real-world harms. He also shares insights on his key standards roles, including editing ISO/IEC 42119 Part 8 on LLM benchmarking and red teaming, co-editing the European AI Risk Management Standard, and leading a new Preliminary Work Item on the safety of AI models, systems, and applications.

The conversation explores balancing innovation with safety, standards’ role in the EU AI Act, international collaboration, and the challenges of addressing frontier risks. A timely, pragmatic discussion on turning real-world risk insights into actionable global standards.

In this episode, hosts Michael Mainelli and Adam Leon Smith welcome Mike Thieme, Managing Director and Cloud Advisory Lead at Accenture. Drawing on his early work in biometric standards since 2005 and extensive experience delivering AI for public and private sector clients, Mike explores the transition to generative AI and the vital need for “consumable” standards that busy professionals can actually use.

He shares insights from leading ISO/IEC projects on AI verification & validation and performance measurement for classification, regression, clustering, and recommendation systems. The discussion covers government AI adoption, reframing human oversight as “human in the lead,” challenges with metrics and reproducibility, and the importance of clear terminology, especially for agentic AI.

Adam’s recent paper AI Agents Under EU Law, which maps compliance architectures for autonomous AI agents, is available at https://arxiv.org/pdf/2604.04604.

A practical, hands-on episode on making AI standards actionable and measurable in the real world.

In this episode, hosts Professor Michael Mainelli and Adam Leon Smith welcome Patrick Sullivan for a practical look at AI certification and ISO/IEC 42001. Patrick explains what third-party certifiers actually do and how they provide objective assurance on AI management systems. He addresses common misconceptions since 42001’s 2023 release, whilst also highlighting the growing market demand, with major firms like Microsoft, Oracle, and Anthropic earning certification and pushing it down supply chains, plus real value in risk management and investment confidence. The discussion covers regional differences in AI governance, the skills needed for effective audits, implementation challenges for organisations of all sizes, and formalising expectations around agentic AI governance. A grounded, certifier’s-eye view on turning the AI standards stack into real-world assurance.

In this episode, hosts Michael Minelli and Adam Smith welcome Nicholas Beale, founder and director at Sciteb, for an insightful look at AI ethics and governance. Nicholas discusses his early internet ethics work and his paper on the Unethical Optimisation Principle, explaining why AI optimisers disproportionately pick unethical strategies by ignoring future downsides. He explores mitigations like panels of AIs, risks of single-system reliance, defence challenges, the Investor Consensus on Responsible AI, guardrail issues, and the need for diversity to avoid systemic risks. A mathematically grounded conversation urging balanced systems that preserve human judgment and the common good.

In this episode, hosts Michael Mainelli and Adam Leon Smith welcome Piercosma Bisconti, dialling in from Rome, for a fresh European perspective on the evolving ethics and governance of generative AI. With a background in philosophy, robotics, and global politics, Piercosma shares his surprising shift from academic research to actively shaping EU and international AI standards, including his work with DEXAI – Artificial Ethics.

The conversation dives into how ChatGPT's 2022 launch changed everything, suddenly bringing AI directly into human social spaces in ways earlier ethical frameworks never fully anticipated. Piercosma explores the rise of more interconnected AI systems and the surprising new risks that emerge when multiple models interact, collaborate, or even compete in real-world environments. Drawing on philosophy and systems thinking, he reflects on what this means for society, especially how always-agreeable AI might quietly reshape human relationships, emotional resilience, and social skills in the years ahead. Expect thoughtful insights on where standards and governance fit in, the limits of current testing approaches, and why the biggest changes may be more social than technological.

A fascinating, big-picture discussion that asks: as AI becomes part of everyday social life, how do we keep our humanity intact? Tune in for Piercosma's unique blend of deep thinking and practical standards experience.

In this second episode of the AI Standards Stack Podcast, guest Dr Christine Chow joins hosts Professor Michael Mainelli and Adam Leon Smith to discuss responsible AI governance from an investor’s perspective. Christine, a long-time investment professional and early advocate for responsible AI since 2012, shares insights drawn from her pioneering work, including leading Federated Hermes’ 2019 industry-first investor expectations on responsible AI and data governance.

The conversation centers on why robust data governance forms the foundation of effective AI governance, covering data provenance, bias in raw, model and synthetic data, transparency, explainability and accountability. It explores practical challenges across evolving AI paradigms, from efficiency tools to generative, agentic, multimodal and embodied systems, including use-case identification, prompt engineering, meaningful human-in-the-loop oversight, board-level engagement, and societal risks of over-reliance such as impacts on mental health, confidence and critical thinking. The episode examines the fragmented global standards landscape (EU AI Act risk categories, NIST voluntary frameworks, ISO 42001), investor approaches to company engagement, environmental concerns around AI infrastructure, tensions between free speech and content guardrails, cultural complexities in human rights, and the push for concrete implementation guidance to balance innovation with safety and societal well-being.

In this inaugural episode, guest Maury Shenk, CEO and Co-Founder of Ordinary Wisdom will be joined by regular hosts Professor Michael Mainelli and Adam Leon Smith to talk about how he is seeking to develop, through Ordinary Wisdom, innovative ways of shaping AI behaviour. Drawing from his background as a technology lawyer, entrepreneur, investor, and AI enthusiast, Shenk shares his journey into the field and his risk-oriented perspective on AI's potential harms, from autonomous weapons and social disruption to geopolitical tensions, while remaining optimistic about its transformative power as a general-purpose technology akin to electricity or the printing press.

The discussion examines whether AI can be imbued with something akin to a "conscience" or selected worldview, moving beyond top-down commands from tech giants toward approaches informed by human values, social consensus, and rigorous testing. The episode sets the stage for a deeper exploration of how standards and ethics can guide AI toward beneficial outcomes in a rapidly changing world.

Hosts:

Professor Michael Mainelli: Director at Z/Yen Group, the City of London’s leading think-tank on finance and technology. Former Lord Mayor of London (2023–2024), Sheriff of the City of London (2019–2021), and President of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Adam Leon Smith: Expert in AI regulation and technical standards. Chair of the AIQI Consortium. Deputy Chair of the UK national AI standards committee. Project leader for AI Act-related standards in CEN/CENELEC JTC 21.