AI and the knowledge commons: Balancing automation and human agency for resilience and trust

Time: 09:00 23rd November
Speaker Photo
Elena Simperl
About the Speaker
Elena Simperl is a Professor of Computer Science at King’s College London, where she co-directs the King’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Elena is also the Director of Research at the Open Data Institute, a Fellow of the British Computer Society and the Royal Society of Arts, and a Hans Fischer Senior Fellow. Her work is at the intersection between AI and social computing. She features in AMiners’ top 100 most influential scholars in knowledge engineering of the last decade, in the Women in AI 2000 ranking, as well as Stanford University's list of world's top 2% scientists. Elena co-chairs the Croissant working group in ML Commons, developing an open standard to improve data portability, discovery and use in AI. She is the president of the Semantic Web Science Association.
Abstract
Initiatives such as Wikipedia, Zooniverse, Reddit, and OpenStreetMap have become foundational digital infrastructure that enable large-scale, collaborative knowledge production. For decades, their volunteers have leveraged AI tools for tasks such as vandalism detection, workflow optimization, or community support. However, the emergence of generative AI introduces qualitatively different dynamics, with implications for trust, governance, and sustainability. While generative models foster new forms of knowledge production, they also pose risks of misinformation, homogenisation, and diminished human agency. In this talk, I will present socio-technical work on how AI, including generative approaches, can be designed and deployed to ensure these infrastructures remain resilient, equitable, and human-centred in an era where high-quality, curated content remains hugely valuable and important.