Kay Firth-Butterfield

Kay Firth-Butterfield is a lawyer, professor, and author specializing in the intersection of artificial intelligence, international relations, Business and AI ethics. She is the CEO of the Centre for Trustworthy Technology which is a Member of the World Economic Forum's Forth Industrial Revolution Network. Before starting her new position Kay was the head of AI and machine learning at the World Economic Forum. She was an adjunct professor of law at the University of Texas at Austin.

Firth-Butterfield has authored of two books: Human Rights and Human Trafficking and Laws on Human Trafficking, the latter co-authored with Tina Miranda. She has also written numerous articles and given speeches on the topics of AI, law, international relations, AI ethics and AI for business and government transformation.

Education
Firth-Butterfield graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in law and social science from the University of Sussex. She attended St. Mary's University for her further studies, where she received a Master's degree in international relations and a Master of Laws.

Career
Firth-Butterfield started her career as a barrister and part-time judge in the United Kingdom. Over time, she began to research more topics about the future of law, including the impact of AI, and specialized more at the intersection of AI and policy. More recently, she has served as an adjunct professor of law at the University of Texas at Austin, where she co-founded the Responsible AI Institute. Firth-Butterfield is currently an Associate Fellow at the Leverhulme Center for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge.

She has advised governments, think tanks, and nonprofits about artificial intelligence law, ethics, and policy. She established an AI ethics advisory panel at Lucid.ai in 2014, which has since included AI experts like Murray Shanahan, Max Tegmark, and Derek Jinks. Since 2015, she has served as the Executive Committee Vice Chair of IEEE's Global Initiative on Ethical Considerations in the Design of AI and Autonomous Systems. She has also served on Lord Chief Justice’s advisory panel on AI and law, the advisory board for UNESCO's International Research Centre on AI, and AI4ALL's advisory board.

Selected awards and honors

 * 2017 – Most Important 25 Women in Robotics
 * 2018 – 12 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics
 * 2020 – VentureBeat Women in AI Awards Responsibility & Ethics of AI Nominee
 * 2020 – 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics Hall of Fame Honoree
 * 2020 – Forbes Women Defining The 21st Century AI Movement
 * 2021 – The New York Times 10 Women Changing the Landscape of Leadership