Cambridge at Hay 2024

Verity Harding’s recent book, AI Needs You: How We Can Change AI's Future and Save Our Own, argues that AI doesn’t have to herald the kind of dystopian future being depicted in the press and that it is critical for society to take the lead in setting the terms of engagement.

Drawing lessons from the histories of three 20th-century tech revolutions - the space race, in vitro fertilisation and the internet, her book argues that people can imbue AI with a deep intentionality that reflects our best values, ideals, and interests and that serves the public good.

Jonnie Penn’s research explores the social implications of artificial intelligence over centuries. Penn also created the MTV documentary series The Buried Life and co-authored What Do You Want To Do Before You Die?, a book based on the series, which became a New York Times best seller.

The session is sponsored by Anthropic, an AI start-up which aims to develop safe, reliable AI models for the public.

Harding will also take part in a news review with Baroness Shami Chakrabarti, former Shadow Attorney General and Akshat Rathi, host of climate podcast Zero.

Another Cambridge Series session sees Professor Sir David King, Founder of the Centre for Climate Repair at the University of Cambridge, in conversation with Ed Miliband, Shadow Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero.  The two will discuss the pivotal moments of the climate crisis, with Professor King identifying the tipping points that could shape Earth’s future and Ed Miliband laying out the decisions ahead and the opportunities we have to create a sustainable, fairer future for all. 

Professor King, currently Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge and Chair of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group, was the UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser between 2000 and 2007 and the Foreign Secretary’s Special Representative on Climate Change between 2013 and 2017.

Other Cambridge Series sessions include a talk by radical cultural historian, writer and activist Diarmuid Hester about his book Nothing Ever Just Disappears. The book argues that a queer sense of place is central to the history of the 20th century.

Hester says: “I’m interested in the potential of cultural history to bring about radical change. Creating counter-narratives that abrade histories sanctioned by the dominant majority helps us to imagine the past differently, and shifts our perceptions of what’s achievable in the present. By uncovering the marginalised stories of those who have come before, and bringing to light the worlds that they created (however fleetingly), we can see that another way is possible.” 

Dorothy Byrne, president of Murray Edward College and former head of News and Current Affairs at Channel Four, will be in conversation with author and leadership coach Dr Lucy Ryan about the triple-whammy of discrimination faced by women over 50 at work.

Dr Ryan’s recent book, Revolting Women, for which Byrne wrote the foreword, talks about how the assumptions about declining midlife motivation and energy are often not true for women, highlights why women walk out of corporate life and shows how businesses can retain and develop this invaluable talent pool. At Channel Four Byrne produced films on rape, domestic violence, ageism at work, fertility and the effects of poverty. She is also the author of Trust me, I’m not a Politician.

Now in its 16th year, the Cambridge Series launched in 2008 in advance of the University’s 800th anniversary and has featured speakers including the Nobel Laureate Sir John Gurdon, Professor Martin Rees, Dame Gillian Beer and Dame Fiona Reynolds.

One regular speaker at Hay is the neuroscientist and Magdalene College Fellow Dr Hannah Critchlow, who will be taking part in two sessions this year - one on the news review with Professor Danny Dorling and AC Grayling and the other in conversation with microbiome scientist and surgeon James Kinross.

Other Cambridge speakers at Hay Festival include Honorary Professor of Agricultural Botany Tina Barsby who will take part in a Food for Thought workshop on what the future of food will look like.

Dr Pragya Agarwal, a behavioural scientist, author and University of Cambridge Fellow, who will discuss the far-reaching effects of maternity in Metamorphosis in Motherhood, with writers and journalists Lucy Jones, Clover Stroud and Candice Brathwaite.