On 13 July, Conversations on AI co-hosted a fireside chat on Ethical Agentic AI with Northeastern University London's Alan Turing Society.
Chaired by MA Philosophy and AI student Alex Bartlett, the event brought together Brian Ball and Alice Helliwell from the Computational Philosophy Lab at Northeastern University London and the co-founders of Pippa Labs, Carl Coddington and Dafydd Biffen, to discuss their collaboration on putting AI ethics into practice in the development of cutting-edge agentic AI.
Pippa Labs have been working with ethicists at the Computational Philosophy Lab—and deploying their 3D Model of AI Ethics—to ensure the development of their agentic AI approach is conducted responsibly and that the result is trustworthy.
The 3D Model was developed in response to the charge that AI ethics approaches are ‘useless’ (Munn 2023) and the related call to move AI ethics from principles to practice (Morley et al. 2023). Making this transition from principles to practice—or from 'what' to 'how'—is a key challenge facing the field of AI ethics.
AI ethics can be operationalised at three levels: government regulation, corporate governance, and developer culture. The 3D Model intervenes at the level of developer culture. It operates at three stages of the development and implementation of new technologies: Design, Develop and Deploy. At each stage, developer teams answer a series of questions about their choices. This helps build the culture and language of ethics, without relying on jargon or principles which don’t translate to how teams actually work on the ground.
At the Design phase, teams should be asking ‘What are we building?’ and ‘Should we build it?’. In the Develop phase, teams should ask ‘How should we build it?’ and ‘Why should we build it in this way?’. And finally in the Deploy phase teams should ask ‘Where can we deploy this system ethically?’ and ‘Who will be affected?’. The 3D Model materials support teams in answering these high-level questions.
Pippa Labs have been employing the 3D Model in the development of their systems since early 2026. Of the Model, they say: “It works. The model genuinely provoked deeper thinking than we expected.”
You can read the full 3D Model paper here. Or you can read our 2-page explainer here.
This event was part of Conversations on AI (website link), a panel-led discussion event series founded in November 2023 by alumni of Northeastern University London’s MA in Philosophy and AI, together with faculty members from the University’s Computational Philosophy Lab.
They have some further upcoming events in the autumn:
“On the 2nd September, Conversations invites you to join various AI community groups for a gathering for a London summit launch party ahead of a Deeply Human summit in Paris in October. At the London launch Conversations on AI will be hearing from Deeply Human on the opinions of young people across Europe on AI, who will give us a taste of what to expect in Paris - to whet the appetites of those who plan to attend, and to enable those who can't to get a flavour of what it will be like. After this conversation, the Conversations team will carry your message from this event to the summit. You can register for the London Launch here.”
“On the 16th September, Clarasys are hosting Conversations at their offices near Blackfriars, London to explore what AI means for the future of work. The panel will include institutions and academics at the frontier of research in this area, along with businesses who are experimenting with new ways of working. The panel will be moderated by Alex Jolly from 100% Human at Work (who are gathering examples of best practice around the world) and will build on the recent work in this area from the City of London digital taskforce and the Mayor of London’s AI and jobs taskforce. The Conversationalists would love to hear your thoughts, concerns, opinions and ideas about this pressing topic - please register here.”
“For anyone who missed Conversations’ ‘investors’ due diligence for responsible AI’ event in June with TechUK, there will be a repeat on 9th October - registration is here.”
“There will also be a second open mic event at NU London’s Start-Up Hub on 2nd December to round the year off. Registration here.”
Follow Conversations on AI on LinkedIn. And listen to their podcast on your favourite platform (including a recent episode featuring the CPL’s Alice Helliwell).
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