Governance

Recognising the value of bringing academic expertise into the public domain, I am committed to contributing to the governance of emerging technologies, particularly those with intimate and sensitive implications. I serve on various advisory boards, including the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) Technology Advisory Panel, where I provide guidance on biometrics. Additionally, I am a member of Ofcom’s Making Sense of Media Research, Evidence, and Evaluation Working Group. Supported by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, I am currently assessing the adequacy of PIPEDA in regulating child-focused emotional AI systems. In my work with IEEE, I chair IEEE P7014.1, an ethical technical standard offering detailed recommendations for the ethical functioning of emulated empathy in AI. I am also an IEEE CertifAIEd Authorized Lead Assessor for Autonomous Intelligent Systems.

Standards development

Mail

IEEE P7014.1 Chair for WG of Recommended Practice for Ethical Considerations of Emulated Empathy in Partner-based General-Purpose Artificial Intelligence Systems
W3C (Open) Metaverse Interoperability (OMI) Community Group.
IEEE P7014 Standard for Ethical considerations in Emulated Empathy in Autonomous and Intelligent Systems
IEEE P7700 Recommended Practice for the Responsible Design and Development of Neurotechnologies
IEEE P7030 Ethical Assessment of Extended Reality (XR) Technologies
IEEE P2895 Standard Taxonomy for Responsible Trading of Human-Generated Data

Policy reports/submissions

Bakir, V., Ghotbi, N., Ho, T.M,. Laffer, A., Mantello, P., McStay, A., Miranda, D., Miyashita, H., Podoletz, L., Tanaka, H., Urquhart, L. (2024) Can we live well with Emotional AI? It depends. Final Report.
McStay, A. & Urquhart, l. (2022) UK ICO Technology and Innovation Foresight on future of transport (invited contribution).
McStay, A. & Urquhart, l. (2022) UK ICO Technology and Innovation Foresight on biometrics (invited contribution).
McStay, A. & Rosner, G. (2022) Welsh Government Digital Ethics Report Applying digital ethics to government and public services.
McStay, A., Rosner, G., Miyashita, H. and Urquhart, l. (2020) Comment on Children’s Rights In Relation To Emotional AI And The Digital Environment for UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.
Bakir, V. and McStay, A. (2020) Inquiry into the Impact of Social Media on Elections & Electoral Administration, INVITED submission to the Electoral Matters Committee, Parliament of Victoria, Australia.
McStay cited/discussed in UNICEF (2020) Policy guidance on AI for children (input from McStay on Emotional AI)
Bakir, V., & McStay, A. 2020. invited report, Inquiry into the Impact of Social Media on Elections & Electoral Administration, Electoral Matters Committee, Parliament of Victoria (Australia)
McStay, A. and Rosner, G. (2020) Emotional AI and children: ethics, parents, governance (2020 Report).
AGAINST OPACITY, OUTRAGE & DECEPTION: Towards an ethical code of conduct for transparent, explainable, civil & informative digital political campaigns (House of Lords Select Committee on Democracy & Digital Technologies, 2019).
CULTURE CHANGE Incentivise political campaigners to run civil and informative election campaigns. (All-Party Parliamentary Group on Electoral Campaigning Transparency, 2019).
Datafied Bearbaiting and Emotional AI: Anticipating the Quantified Jeremy Kyle Show (DCMS parliamentary inquiry into reality media, 2019)
Emotional AI and Insurance: Online Targeting and Bias in Algorithmic Decision Making (UK Government, Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, 2019)
The Right to Privacy in The Age of Emotional AI (The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2018)
The Sorry Tale of British Journalism and our Right to Privacy (Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, 2018)
And then there’s Emotional AI (House of Lords Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence, Oct 2017)
Summary and Analysis of All Written Submissions On How To Combat Fake News (Up To Apr 2017) (DCMS parliamentary inquiry into fake news, 2017)
Fake News: Media Economics and Emotional Button-Pushing (DCMS parliamentary inquiry into fake news, 2017)
Public Feeling on Privacy, Security and Surveillance: A Report by DATA-PSST and DCSS (2015)
Changing nature of influence: emotional analytics, automation and advertising (UK Government Office for Science, 2015)