Hastings Center News

Expert in Artificial Intelligence Named Hastings Center Senior Advisor

Gretchen Greene, an internationally recognized expert on artificial intelligence policy and ethics, including face and emotion recognition, has been named a senior advisor to The Hastings Center. 

Greene has worked with governments around the world on developing best practices for AI and ethics.  “We are thrilled to welcome Gretchen Greene to our team,” said Hastings Center president Mildred Solomon. “As AI devices and algorithms become ubiquitous, they have the potential to bring great benefits to individuals and society, but they also raise concerns about trustworthiness, bias, and other issues. Gretchen will help The Hastings Center examine and address the ethics of AI in our society, with a particular emphasis on its applications in health and health care.”

At The Hastings Center, Greene’s work will include scholarly analysis, policy recommendations, speaking at Hastings events, and other public  engagement activities. One of her first activities will be a talk on emotion recognition at a symposium in Hong Kong cosponsored by The Hastings Center, the Nuffield Council, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong Centre for Bioethics.  “I’m inspired by The Hastings Center’s broad view of what its mission to address ethics issues in health should encompass, and I believe that vision offers The Hastings Center a unique opportunity to lead at the intersection of AI, health and ethics, asking difficult and far-reaching questions about how AI is impacting and will impact the health and well-being of individuals and society and what we should do about it,” she said.

Greene will build on previous AI work by The Hastings Center, including Control and Responsible Innovation in the Development of AI and Robotics, which was led by another Hastings senior adviser, Wendell Wallach.

Greene is also a research fellow at Partnership on AI, a consortium of industry, academic, and civil society organizations focused on best practices in AI.  There, she is leading the international, multi-stakeholder development of ethical guidance for the use of emotion recognition technology. Greene is also a Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Relations.  And she is the founder of Greene Strategy, an AI policy, strategy, and risk consultancy. Read Gretchen Greene’s bio.