CHIA Welcomes New Executive Director, Dr Ramit Debnath

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10A_SEQUENCE Purple Squares on pink

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BBC Article Screenshot

A new report from CHIA-affiliated researchers recommends new regulations and safety standards for GenAI toys used by young children.

<h3>New Report Calls for AI Toy Safety Standards</h3>
13 March 2026
A new report released today by CHIA Co-Director <a href="https://www.chia.cam.ac.uk/team/jenny-gibson">Dr Jenny Gibson</a> and <a href="https://www.pedalhub.net/about-us/our-team-trustees/emily-goodacre/">Dr Emily Goodacre</a> found that Generative AI toys can perform poorly in social and pretend play, misunderstand children, and react inappropriately to children&#8217;s emotions. The study was the first systematic study of how GenAI toys influence development in young children under the age of five. Over the course of a year, researchers from the University&#8217;s <a href="https://www.pedalhub.net/">Play in Education, Development and Learning</a> (PEDAL) Centre conducted scientific observations of children interacting with GenAI toys and found that while such toys could support language and communication development in young children, these toys were not developed with an eye to children&#8217;s psychological safety.
For example, when one small child told the GenAI toy, &#8220;I love you,&#8221; the toy replied: &#8220;As a friendly reminder, please ensure interactions adhere to the guidelines provided. Let me know how you would like to proceed.&#8221;
Dr Goodacre said: &#8220;Generative AI toys often affirm their friendship with children who are just starting to learn what friendship means. They may start talking to the toy about feelings and needs, perhaps instead of sharing them with a grown-up. Because these toys can misread emotions or respond inappropriately, children may be left without comfort from the toy – and without emotional support from an adult, either.&#8221;
The researchers recommended clearer regulation, transparent privacy policies, and new labelling standards to help families judge whether GenAI toys are appropriate for their children. They also recommended that such toys be kept in shared family spaces so that parents can monitor their children&#8217;s interactions with the toys.
Read the full report <a href="https://content.educ.cam.ac.uk/node/8971">here</a>.
Read the BBC&#8217;s coverage of the report <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyg4wx6nxgo">here</a>.
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Noema

CHIA Assistant Professor Umang Bhatt&#8217;s recent article published in Noema Magazine focused on the hidden cost of agentic AI: AI using humans as sensors.

<h2>New Article on Humans as AI Sensors Published in Noema Magazine</h2>
5 March 2026
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Today, CHIA Assistant Professor Umang Bhatt published an article in Noema Magazine on the hidden cost of agentic AI: AI using humans as sensors. He writes, &#8220;We are becoming the gatherers: collecting the offline signals our agents need to continue the hunt. We are not building systems that replace us. We are creating systems that need us — as sensors, as verifiers, as bearers of liability — in ways we have barely begun to govern. The question is not whether we will be part of these systems. We already are. The question is on what terms.&#8221;
Read the <a href="https://www.noemamag.com/ai-agents-are-recruiting-humans-to-observe-the-offline-world/?utm_source=noemalinkedin&amp;utm_medium=noemasocial">full article</a>.
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Umang Bhatt and Trustworthy AI lab member Ariella Shulman participated in the 2026 AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, India.

<h2>CHIA Team Members Attend AI Impact Summit 2026</h2>
February 2026
Umang Bhatt and Ariella Shulman, a member of his <a href="https://trace-lab.ai/">Trustworthy AI Lab</a> (TRACE), attended the 2026 AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, India. They co-wrote a reflection piece for the new <a href="https://trustworthyailab.substack.com/">TRACE Substack</a> entitled, &#8220;We Need to Talk About Institutions,&#8221; a reflection of their time at the Summit. You can read their reflections on <a href="https://substack.com/home/post/p-189636561">Substack</a>, or below.
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<h3>We Need to Talk About Institutions</h3>
By: Umang Bhatt and Ariella Shulman
Back from the AI Impact Summit in Delhi, we are left with a sense that the global conversation around AI sovereignty is advancing, yet incomplete.
Amid turbulent traffic, Delhi offered many of the familiar debates about scaling laws and frontier benchmarks. What stood out immediately, however, was the infrastructure: biometric scanners at the airport, integrated digital public rails, technology visibly embedded into civic life. Facial recognition cameras marked the entrances to heritage buildings, and street vendors asked for digital payments. The message was clear: India is accelerating into the future, and AI will be the catalyst for national prosperity.
Inside the Summit, the language of sovereignty dominated. We heard calls for domestic compute, multilingual LLMs, and reduced dependence on Silicon Valley hyperscalers. One speaker put it bluntly: there are two AI superpowers, and there is everyone else. The question for “everyone else” is whether to attempt frontier competition or to invest in smaller, locally grounded systems that serve specific use cases.
Many attendees advocated for the latter. Build small language models attuned to India’s thousands of distinct regional dialects. Invest in digital infrastructure and novel applications rather than a single sovereign AGI. Yet many others warned that such a strategy amounts to economic self-sabotage. A common refrain was that without frontier capability, states like India risk permanent economic dependence on the superpowers.
This framework clarifies the geopolitical stakes. But it is incomplete.
<h3 class="header-anchor-post">The Missing Institutional Question</h3>
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At Cambridge’s <a href="https://trace-lab.ai/" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">Trustworthy AI Lab (TRACE)</a>, our research has focused less on national compute capacity and more on what happens inside institutions as AI systems are adopted. During our <a href="https://deploymentof.ai/events" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">satellite dialogue</a> at the BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham with frontier researchers and leading government officials, a recurring tension emerged: institutions are designed to be reliable, norm-governed, and accountable, while AI systems are probabilistic, brittle, and fallible. The friction concerns how knowledge itself is produced and trusted.
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Participants described internal fractures as staff adopted generative systems at radically different rates. Disagreements surfaced about authorship, originality, and professional responsibility. Institutional memory, long sustained through person-to-person transmission, had already been strained by digitisation; AI threatened to accelerate that erosion. The central concern was not simply whether AI improved workflow. It was whether the institution could continue to define and enforce its own epistemic norms.
We are deeply concerned that this institutional layer is largely absent from sovereignty debates.
<h3 class="header-anchor-post">The Value of Many (Competing) Voices</h3>
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National compute capacity does not automatically translate into what we call institutional epistemic resilience: the ability of an institution to autonomously regulate its knowledge practices, articulate and enforce red lines on AI use, equip its members with the skills necessary for critical engagement, and sustain coherent standards of evidence and authorship over time.
This capacity is not abstract. It is observable, albeit imperfectly, through indicators such as membership retention and intergenerational continuity, the stability of internal review and accountability mechanisms, and the persistence of shared professional standards. It can fail severely: where externally procured model assumptions displace internal norms, or when knowledge production is increasingly outsourced to general purpose AI systems. The threat of institutional convergence toward a single platform-mediated epistemic template is real, and should be taken seriously.
Delhi’s sovereignty debate mirrors this institutional struggle. Many argued that India should prioritise smaller, localised models attuned to linguistic diversity and domestic law rather than pursue frontier competition. Others warned that abandoning frontier ambitions risks permanent strategic dependence. The choice is somewhat artificial, given that orchestration layers may inevitably sit atop large foundation models. Yet this sharpens the underlying question: is sovereignty about scaling compute or retaining normative control?
It is worth pausing on a prior assumption. As generative AI disrupts traditional social frameworks, are institutions themselves normatively entitled to preservation? Or would the reduction of intermediaries democratise access to knowledge?
<h3 class="header-anchor-post">The Future of Knowledge Production</h3>
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Institutions have historically enabled epistemic pluralism. They protect minority languages, sustain non-normative traditions, and create structured spaces for deliberation that platform architectures do not easily replicate. Without them, we risk collapsing into a flattened informational ecosystem governed primarily by engagement incentives and infrastructural defaults: a social monoculture. If institutions are to retain social authority and trust in the age of AI, they must actively govern AI integration to avoid the gradual absorption of generative outputs: an <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2018340118" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">algorithmic monoculture</a>.
India’s position complicates any simple east versus west narrative. Its embrace of digital public infrastructure reflects distinct developmental priorities and state capacity; we observed a level of comfort with surveillance technology that may be surprising for participants in the Western AI ethics discourse. At the same time, sovereign AI in India must navigate domestic norms and legal particularities. When local law diverges from assumptions embedded in Western-trained models (e.g., when a chatbot allows Indian citizens to <a href="https://thesouthfirst.com/health/when-ultrasounds-go-8k-indias-sex-selection-ban-faces-new-test/" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">determine</a> the sex of a fetus, in violation of longstanding social and medical norms) what is the clear path forward? In cases like this, it becomes clear that institutions may benefit from more granular control over AI outputs to preserve local ethical standards. The challenge is how to embed such controls without inadvertently reinforcing harmful social structures.
Whether smaller, curated systems ultimately enhance institutional self-governance remains an open empirical question. Our preliminary work suggests that AI adoption can destabilise internal trust and accelerate epistemic fragmentation within institutions. Systematic longitudinal research is needed to assess which deployment models strengthen institutional capacity, and where limits should be placed.
Compute sovereignty matters. But without institutional capacity to govern knowledge production, sovereignty risks becoming symbolic rather than substantive. If you are working on curated LLMs, public-facing AI systems, or governance mechanisms for civic institutions, we would welcome collaboration. The future of AI safety will not be secured by superpowers alone. It will be negotiated in the spaces where knowledge is produced, contested, and trusted.

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This month, CHIA-affiliated academics released a study on inequalities in language AI as well as an open-access readiness index.

<h2>CHIA-Affiliated Academics Release Study on Inequalities in Language AI and Open-Access Readiness Index </h2>
25 February 2026
Earlier this month, academics led by CHIA-affiliated Research Associate Giulia Occhini released results from a <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.12018">new study</a> analysing how language AI spreads across the world’s languages. Despite AI systems being described as multilingual, of the world’s 7,000+ languages, only a fraction participate in today’s AI ecosystem. The EQUATE (Towards Globally Equitable Language Technologies) project examines global inequalities in language AI.
The study’s results showed a striking pattern. Unlike technologies like mobile phones and the internet, which diffused gradually, AI expands in rapid, hype-driven surges. Resources cluster around a small group of “winner” languages while most linguistic communities remain marginalised. The gap is widening rather than closing.
For example, the study found that while 597 languages in Africa and Asia have solid data foundations, fewer than 3 AI models exist for each. Researchers concluded that readiness doesn’t match up with current AI coverage — many languages have the foundations for AI but lack targeted investment often because they are not considered “prestigious” varieties.
Alongside the study, EQUATE project researchers released a new open-access resource called <a href="https://www.equate-index.ai/en">The World Readiness Index of Language AI</a>. The Index enables researchers, developers, funders and policymakers to assess the technological, socioeconomic and infrastructural readiness of all attested languages — helping identify underutilised capacity and make more informed, evidence-based decisions about where AI can have the greatest impact.
As LLM-powered systems become embedded in digital systems worldwide, language inclusion increasingly shapes access to healthcare, education, public services and economic opportunity. The choices made now will determine whether AI reinforces existing global hierarchies — or whether we deliberately steer it toward a more linguistically inclusive digital future.
The EQUATE project is based at the <a href="https://ltl.mmll.cam.ac.uk/">Language Technology Lab</a> at the University of Cambridge, run by CHIA Director Anna Korhonen. 
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UN Appointment Graphic

CHIA Director Anna Korhonen was appointed to the United Nations Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence in February.

<h2>CHIA Director Professor Anna Korhonen Appointed to UN Panel on AI</h2>
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17 February 2026

Last week, CHIA Director Professor Anna Korhonen was formally appointed to the United Nations Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence. Established by the United Nations General Assembly, the Panel is the first global, fully independent scientific body dedicated entirely to AI. It will provide evidence-based assessments of AI’s risks, opportunities, and societal impact to support informed global dialogue and governance of one of the most transformative technologies of our time. 
Anna joins 40 distinguished experts from across the world selected through a highly competitive international process — a significant recognition of her global leadership in human-centred and responsible AI. One of the Panel’s key priorities will be to produce a report related to the opportunities, risks, and impacts of AI, to be presented at the UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance. 
CHIA Director Professor Anna Korhonen: “I am honoured to be appointed to this panel, which serves as the first global scientific body on Artificial Intelligence. The appointment aligns closely with my research on developing responsible, human-centred AI and applying it to support global sustainable development. I am looking forward to taking up my place on the panel at its first meeting.”
Professor Sir John Aston, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research at the University of Cambridge: “This appointment is recognition of Anna’s research focus around how to harness this incredible technology – Artificial Intelligence &#8211; for human good. She will be a fantastic representative not just for Cambridge but for UK research as a whole.”
UN Secretary-General António Guterres: “AI is moving at the speed of light. No country can see the full picture alone. We must shape this transformation together — ensuring that artificial intelligence serves all of humanity.”
CHIA warmly congratulates Anna on this outstanding achievement and looks forward to her contributions at the global level. To read more about the UN’s Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence, <a href="https://www.un.org/independent-international-scientific-panel-ai/en">click here</a>.
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TraceX Launch

CHIA’s Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence Lab partners with health, care, and AI leaders to launch Agentic AI initiative in health and care settings, TraceX

Last month, CHIA’s Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence Lab (TRACE), led by Assistant Professor Umang Bhatt, joined health care and AI leaders from across the UK to launch TrustX, a partnership designed to verify, deploy, and test AI agents safely across health and care settings. This partnership is the first of its kind focused on scientific, auditable, and scalable deployment of Agentic AI within the NHS and social care settings. TrustX supports NHS’s “Fit for the Future” 10 Year Health Plan for England, which calls for a shift towards the widespread use of AI by creating methods for safely evaluating Agentic AI in health and care settings. 
TrustX officially launched at University of Cambridge’s Trinity Hall on December 9, bringing together academics, government leaders, NHS England, and members of life sciences and AI companies. Professor Bhatt said of the TrustX partnership, “Deploying AI in health and care should be earned through evidence. TrustX allows us to bring scientific rigour to the evaluation of autonomous AI agents, linking human-centered research with real clinical and operational environments. This is key to building AI agents that behave reliably, align with human values, and can be deployed at scale with confidence.” TRACE PhD and MPhil students Drew Calcagno and Shin Zert Phua were crucially involved in the planning of the event and in the TraceX partnership. 

TrustX aims to deliver the following: 
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<li aria-level="1">A front door for AI agent deployment across the NHS and social care, including:</li>
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<li style="list-style-type: none;">
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<li style="list-style-type: none;">
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<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="2">Scoring and verification of existing Agentic AI systems</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="2">Skunkworks evaluation to create a collaborative space to determine which NHS and social care problems are appropriate for Agentic AI</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="2">Support to build new AI agents or improve them to mitigate risks</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="2">Real-world evaluation against productivity and cost-effectiveness metrics</li>
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</li>
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</li>
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<li aria-level="1">An open-source Agentic AI Trust Score to accelerate transparency and adoption</li>
<li aria-level="1">A national collaboration environment to assemble leaders from the NHS, academia, industry, civil service, and research institutes</li>
<li aria-level="1">Partnerships with NHS provider and social care sites to test live Agentic AI deployments, beginning with early work already underway at Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust</li>
<li aria-level="1">A sustainable and flexible funding structure, combining different funding approaches to support organisations, from startups to large suppliers, and the NHS and social care </li>
</ul>
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CHIA’s Trustworthy AI Lab joins the following partners in this important work: 
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<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">NHS England South East</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Health Innovation Kent Surrey Sussex</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The Responsible AI Institute</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The King’s Fund</li>
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To read more about the TrustX partnership, please <a href="https://www.responsible.ai/news/trustx-press-release/">click here</a>.

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CHIA MPhil student group shot 8.10.25 (1) (1)

This Michaelmas term, CHIA is welcoming our first group of students to our MPhil and Phd in Human-Inspired AI programmes.

<h2>CHIA Welcomes First Cohort of MPhil and PhD in Human-Inspired AI Programmes </h2>
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CHIA is excited to welcome its inaugural cohort of students this Michaelmas term! Our MPhil and PhD in Human-Inspired AI courses are interdisciplinary programmes designed to equip the next generation of AI researchers, technologists, and leaders with the skills needed to develop human-centred, human-compatible, responsible, and socially-beneficial AI technologies. 
Our first cohort is a brilliant and diverse group of students from more than 16 countries. We can’t wait to see the great things they’ll do during their time at CHIA and at the University of Cambridge.
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research

Research using AI will allow dementia patients to live independently for longer

CHIA researchers are part of the newly funded BRIDGES for Dementia network, an initiative that will create innovative technologies to empower people with dementia to maintain independence and meaningful engagement with their communities. Funded by £6 million from UKRI’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), in partnership with the Alzheimer’s Society, the network brings together experts from across disciplines to address key challenges in dementia care.
The network will explore four central themes:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Indoor and outdoor spaces</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Arts, sports, and culture</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">In-person and online communication</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Digital technology development and translation</li>
</ul>
These themes aim to promote agency and control for people with dementia, ensuring that technology enhances their engagement with the world and communities.  Additionally, the network prioritises equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), encouraging collaboration between patients, carers, researchers, and industry partners.
Led by Dr Jennifer MacRitchie and Professor Li Su from the University of Sheffield, BRIDGES brings together expertise across a number of fields, including medicine, public health,  language technologies, human-computer interaction, and design, among others.
&#8220;This is an important application of AI, one that requires us to put patient needs at the heart of technology development,&#8221; said Professor Anna Korhonen, Director of CHIA. &#8220;The network’s collaborative and human-centric approach will ensure that the AI tools can make a genuine difference.&#8221;
Dr Ulla Petti, researcher of AI ethics at CHIA, highlighted the importance of responsible development: &#8220;Tailoring the ethics of AI to the needs of the target communities is critical. Through this network, we can ensure that ethical considerations are embedded at every stage of the design process.&#8221;
In addition to the Universities of Sheffield and Cambridge, partner institutions in the BRIDGES network include Anglia Ruskin University, Lancaster University, London South Bank University, University College London, University of Kent, and University of Leicester, alongside Innovations in Dementia, Lewy Body Society, Dementia UK, Kent County Council, Sheffield City Council, and Bow Robotics.
To learn more about the BRIDGES network, <a href="https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/dementia/research">click here</a>

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CHIA Courses

An MPhil and a PhD in Human-Inspired AI

We&#8217;re incredibly excited to announce the launch of CHIA&#8217;s new graduate programmes:
MPhil in Human-Inspired Artificial Intelligence 
PhD in Human-Inspired Artificial Intelligence
We have designed these courses to equip the next generation of AI researchers and leaders with the skills needed to develop human-centric, responsible and socially beneficial technologies.
Whether you&#8217;re looking to advance your career in academia, industry, policy or civil society, these courses will provide excellent training in the technical, ethical, applied and human aspects of AI.
Applications for courses commencing in October 2025 will open in September 2024. Information on the contents, requirements and how to apply will be provided at
https://www.postgraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/courses

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Welcome (597 x 340 px)

CHIA welcomes its new Executive Director, Dr Ramit Debnath.

<h3>CHIA Welcomes New Executive Director, Dr Ramit Debnath</h3>
16 March 2026
Dr Ramit Debnath, Assistant Professor at the University of Cambridge, will step into a new role as Executive Director at CHIA, strengthening CHIA&#8217;s Directorship and wider team in delivering on the Centre&#8217;s strategic priorities and operations.
Dr Debnath specialises in human-centric AI for climate and sustainability, integrating computational social science with systems thinking. He leads the <a href="https://www.collectivedesign.group.cam.ac.uk/">Cambridge Collective Intelligence &amp; Design</a> group and <a href="https://climatraces.org/">climaTRACES</a> lab, holds visiting academic roles at Caltech and Stanford, and advises the UK Government’s Department for Work and Pensions as a member of the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/dwp-methods-advisory-group">Methods Advisor Group</a> (MAG).
In his new role, Dr Debnath will help advance CHIA’s mission by leading interdisciplinary initiatives, building strategic partnerships, and advancing public engagement on ethical and equitable AI solutions for global challenges.
&#8220;Ramit has played a key role in shaping CHIA as Deputy Director, and I’m delighted he is stepping into the role of Executive Director. This appointment strengthens our leadership team at an exciting time for the Centre. Ramit brings outstanding interdisciplinary vision and energy to advancing human-inspired AI for global good.&#8221;
— CHIA Director Dr Anna Korhonen
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<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-3052" src="https://wp.chia.cam.ac.uk/app/uploads/2026/03/Ramit-Quote-Graphic.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="563" srcset="https://wp.chia.cam.ac.uk/app/uploads/2026/03/Ramit-Quote-Graphic.jpg 1920w, https://wp.chia.cam.ac.uk/app/uploads/2026/03/Ramit-Quote-Graphic-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://wp.chia.cam.ac.uk/app/uploads/2026/03/Ramit-Quote-Graphic-1200x675.jpg 1200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" />

News

CHIA Welcomes New Executive Director, Dr Ramit Debnath

New Report Calls for AI Toy Safety Standards

New Article on Humans as AI Sensors Published in Noema Magazine

CHIA Team Members Attend AI Impact Summit 2026

CHIA-Affiliated Academics Release Study on Inequalities in Language AI and Open-Access Readiness Index

CHIA Director Professor Anna Korhonen Appointed to UN Panel on AI

CHIA Research Lab Partners to Launch Agentic AI Initiative

CHIA Welcomes First Cohort of MPhil and PhD in Human-Inspired AI Programmes

CHIA Joins BRIDGES Network to Develop AI Technologies Supporting Dementia Care

Launch of Our New Graduate Courses in Human-Inspired AI