When Dr. Eleanor Drage walks into a room, you know you're about to have a conversation that challenges everything you think you know about AI. And that's exactly what happened when we sat down with one of the world's leading AI ethicists on the Cambridge Tech Podcast this week.

Here's something that should worry every founder: the people building your AI systems and the people talking about AI ethics are speaking completely different languages.

Dr. Drage spent two years interviewing AI engineers about bias. Their answer? "It's the intercept between the x and y axis." Technically correct. Meaningless to the conversation happening in the media and boardrooms.

"These conversations we're having in the media about bias and debiasing are completely meaningless to the actual people making these technologies."

So what does good practice actually look like? Dr. Drage and her team created HEAT - a framework that distils the EU AI Act into something founders can actually use.

Key principles:

• Human-centred design (talk to your users, not just your engineers)
• Ethical development at every stage
• Accountable processes
• Transparency throughout
• It's not linear. Ethics isn't a box to tick at the start - it's cyclical and constant.

Whether you're a founder, investor, or engineer, this episode challenges you to think harder about what "doing AI right" actually means. It's not about grand gestures or impressive statements. It's about having difficult conversations, listening to your engineers, and building systems that reflect real human values.

Dr. Drage's new book, What if We Got AI Right?, explores these ideas in depth with practical examples from around the world - from pollution monitoring in the Niger Delta to sustainable cloud computing in Latin America.

Ready to challenge your assumptions? Hit subscribe and tune in.

Headline sponsor Holden Polestar

Produced by Cambridge TV

#CamTechPod

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.