We are delighted to invite you to a talk:
About the Speaker, Nigel Cameron -- one of our members
While Nigel read religious studies at Cambridge (Emma), and wrote his Edinburgh Ph.D. on 19th century intellectual history, his main focus over many years has been the social/ethical impact of new technologies. During his most recent academic appointment as Fulbright Visiting Chair in Science and Society at the University of Ottawa (where he remains a Senior Fellow), he was focused on the challenge of le chômage technologique in the wake of developments in AI/robotics - on which he was invited to brief the Canadian government and, later, the PM's special advisers at Ten Downing St. Before that, he led a Washington think tank on emerging technology policy, stemming from his earlier work at the Illinois Institute of Technology, where as Associate Dean of the law school and a Research Professor he established the first U.S. university-based centre on the social impact of nanotechnology. He has moderated various conferences on tech/business issues in Brussels and Washington, and been invited to chair GITEX and the Future Tech events in Dubai.
Tom Standage, deputy editor of The Economist, who hosted Nigel's presentation to the magazine's Asia Investor Forum in Hong Kong, wrote this blurb on his book Will Robots Take Your Job? A Plea for Consensus: "Nigel Cameron has a refreshingly honest answer to the question of whether robots will take all the jobs: we don't know. And that's the problem."
Following on from his time in Canada, he was invited to address the "Meeting of Experts" in Geneva called to assess the UN SecGen/Human Rights Council report on AI and human rights.
Nigel's interests include business applications of technology (he has an M.B.A. as well as his Ph.D.), and he has served as an adviser to several companies in the tech/social enterprise sectors, and on the board of a visionary startup.
He has testified before the European Parliament and the Commission's ethics advisory group, as well as several committees of the U.S. Congress. He has also represented the U.S. government at various UN and UNESCO negotiations on ethics/bioethics/science issues, and served four terms as a commissioner of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO, chairing its Committee on Social and Human Sciences. He recently published the first biography of U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, and is working on another biography - of poet Sylvia Plath's psychiatrist, Ruth Barnhouse.
Nigel and his German wife Anna have between them eight children (five his, three hers), and recently took on two little Syrian-German foster kids, whom they expect to be raising.
He hosts the Belgian network of Emma members.
This is our schedule:
- 18h30 - 19h00: Welcome drink (white/red/rosé wine or softs)
- 19h00 - 19h25: Nigel's talk
- 19h25 - 20h00: Q&A
- Dinner afterwards will be in a local restaurant, paid individually.
Registration: Please click here to register. Members of Cambridge, please pay €10 (fully paid-up members or student members, reciprocating societies), non-members please pay €12. Members may bring a friend at member’s rates.
Please make a wire transfer to arrive on our account before 14th January (only those who have paid may attend):
Bank Transfer:IBAN: BE26 0689 0251 7329, BIC: GKCCBEBB,
in the name of: “Cambridge Society of Belgium”,
memo: “<lastname> <firstname>, AI Talk 2026 01 15”
Confirmations will be sent out before the event.