Democracy on Trial: The stress test - can democracy survive? Emily Bell, John McDermid, Elizabeth Seger, Sam Fowles and Gavin Esler (chair)

Emily Bell is Founding Director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia Journalism School and a leading thinker, commentator and strategist on digital journalism. Established in 2010, the Tow Center has rapidly built an international reputation for research into the intersection of technology and journalism. The majority of Emily’s career was spent at Guardian News and Media in London working as an award-winning writer and editor both in print and online. As Editor-in-Chief across Guardian websites and director of digital content for Guardian News and Media, Bell led the web team in pioneering live blogging, multimedia formats, data and social media, making the Guardian a recognised pioneer in the field. She is co-author of Post Industrial Journalism: Adapting to the Present (2012) with CW Anderson and Clay Shirky.

Gavin Esler is an award-winning journalist, television presenter, political commentator and author. He was a main presenter of the BBC current affairs show Newsnight for 12 years until 2014. He presents the podcast This Is Not a Drill and is the author of books including Britain Is Better Than This (2023) and How Britain Ends: English Nationalism and the Rebirth of Four Nations (2021).

Sam Fowles is a barrister specialising in public and constitutional law, with experience of law in the UK, US, Australia and at the Council of Europe. He has worked on many of the most significant political cases of recent years. He regularly appears in the media, including on the BBC, Sky and Al Jazeera.

Professor John McDermid OBE is the Director of the Centre for Assuring Autonomy at the University of York. John has worked on safety of complex, computer and software-controlled systems for almost 40 years, leading major research initiatives and acting as advisor to industry and government on several continents. He first started work on safety of AI-controlled systems in the early 2000s (neural networks for engine control for Rolls-Royce, adaptive flight control for NASA). Since January 2018 he has led a major initiative supported by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation, addressing the safety and assurance of AI and autonomous systems across a wide range of domains (eg health, autonomous vehicles, maritime, mining/quarrying) and with global reach. His recent activities around AI safety include advising the UK Department of Transport and Law Commission on safety and ethics for the introduction of self-driving vehicles to the UK; advising on strategy for AI and Data Science for the UK’s National Physical Laboratory;  advising the UK’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) on their strategy for assuring and regulating AI; presenting at two fringe events for the first International AI Safety summit and he was a Senior Advisor in the production of the International Scientific Report on the Safety of Advanced AI for the second AI Safety Summit in Korea.

Elizabeth Seger is a Senior Policy Advisor at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change leading their work on global AI governance. She’s working to unlock the public value of AI with and for people, and to guard against societal risks. Previously she was Director of Digital Policy at Demos, and she holds active research affiliations with the Centre for the Governance of AI (GovAI) in London, and is an affiliate of the AI: Futures and Responsibility Project (AI:FAR) at the University of Cambridge. Elizabeth’s research interests lie broadly in the ethics and governance of dual use technologies. She holds a PhD in Philosophy of Science and Technology from the University of Cambridge.