Kay Firth-Butterfield is a Fellow with New America’s Future of Work & Innovation Economy Initative. She is the CEO of Good Tech Advisory. She was the Inaugural and former Head of Artificial Intelligence and member of the Executive Committee at the World Economic Forum and. Recognized as one of the foremost experts in the world on the governance of AI, Kay served as the inaugural head of Artificial intelligence and member of the Executive Committee at the World Economic Forum. She has been consistently recognized as a leading woman in AI since 2018 and was featured in the New York Times as one of 10 Women Changing the Landscape of Leadership. She is a TIME Magazine 100 Impact Awardee 2024 for her leadership in responsible AI.
Kay is a barrister, former judge, lecturer, technologist, and entrepreneur who has an abiding interest in how humanity can equitably benefit from new technologies, especially AI. She became the world’s first chief AI Ethics officer in 2014. Kay is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Texas and an author on human rights, AI, and modern slavery. Kay was Vice-Chair of the ground-breaking IEEE Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems and was part of the group that met at Asilomar to create the Asilomar AI Ethical Principles.
She sits on the Polaris Council for the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the Advisory Board for UNESCO International Research Centre on AI, the Advisory Board for international company ADI, the AI and Philanthropy Steering Committee of the Partnership on AI, and the Board of Earth Species Project. She continues to serve on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on AI and their AI Governance Alliance. Kay has advanced degrees in Law and International Relations and regularly speaks to international audiences, addressing many aspects of the beneficial and challenging technical, economic, legal, geo-political, and social changes arising from the use of AI.
Kay is an Associate Barrister of Doughty Street Chambers, Master of the Inner Temple, London, and served on the Lord Chief Justice’s Advisory Panel on AI and Law. Firth-Butterfield earned a Bachelor of Arts in law and social science from the University of Sussex and a Master's degree in international relations and law from St. Mary's University.