Dr Alexander Laffer is a lecturer in Media and Communication at the University of Winchester, UK, where he is co-lead for the undergraduate programme and teaches across media theory and digital cultures. Previous roles have included Research Fellowships at the University of Edinburgh and at Bangor University, as part of the Emotional AI Lab. He has worked on numerous projects exploring the ethics of implementing emergent technology in a range of personal, civic, and security contexts, including Critically Envisioning Trustworthy Biometric Futures (UKRI); AI, Ethics & Policing in North Wales: Establishing Citizens’ Perspectives (BU Impact Accelerator); and Emotional AI in Cities: Cross Cultural Lessons from UK and Japan on Designing for An Ethical Life (ESRC).He has an interest in citizen understanding of new technologies and integrating marginalised voices into debates on technology. He has a background in discourse analysis and completed an ESRC-funded PhD in Literary Linguistics, exploring empathy and narratives of migration. He is currently a Co-I on the Responsible AI/UKRI-funded project Automated Empathy – Globalising International Standards (AEGIS) which is developing an ethical standard (P7014.1) for the development and use of Emulated Empathy in General-purpose AI Systems and Human-AI Partnering. His creative practice centres on digital and design fiction and interrogates the role of empathy and narrative in digital media.
