Creative Folkestone Book Festival: Dr Eleanor Drage: The Fight for a Better AI Future

AI ethicist Dr Eleanor Drage explores the future of artificial intelligence through the lens of power, responsibility and public good. Rather than framing AI as a simple choice between utopia and catastrophe, this event asks who gets to shape the systems that are already transforming everyday life, and what values should guide that process.

Drawing on her book What If We Got AI Right? , Drage looks at the culture and power structures driving the AI race, including Big Tech, biased algorithms and the wider questions of justice, democracy and human values.

The event offers a thoughtful, hopeful alternative to alarmist debates, and considers who benefits from AI, who is left out, and what is at stake when technology is designed and deployed.

Part of the annual Folkestone Book Festival, this conversation brings together ideas about technology, ethics and society in a public-facing event at Quarterhouse. It is chaired by Tamer, with the discussion followed by a book signing after the talk.