Posted: 12th June 2025

DPhil student Kelsey Doerksen recently delivered a TEDx talk at Queen’s University, Canada, addressing one of today’s most pressing topics: how to be an ethical consumer of artificial intelligence. 

In her talk, ‘Becoming a Conscious Consumer of AI’, Doerksen drew on nearly a decade of experience at the intersection of AI and space technology. She is a member of the Oxford Applied and Theoretical Machine Learning Group, a Data Scientist at UNICEF working on the Children’s Climate Risk Index, and a Research Affiliate at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She also serves as Treasurer of the Oxford Wom*n in Computer Science Society. 

Doerksen outlined how AI is now deeply embedded in daily life and societal systems, shaping decisions in areas such as disaster response, environmental monitoring, and education. Drawing on her work forecasting landslides in Nepal, modelling air pollution with NASA, and mapping internet infrastructure for the UN’s Giga Initiative, she made the case for responsible development and use of AI technologies. She emphasised that the power of AI lies in 'its fantastical ability to ingest, synthesise and make sense of enormous amounts of data in a way impossible for any human to achieve quickly and correctly.'

The talk explored the ethical and environmental challenges of AI, from the exploitative labour conditions underpinning data labelling, to the risks of bias and misrepresentation, to the significant carbon and water footprint of large-scale AI systems. Doerksen called for a culture of curiosity, awareness and education among AI users, arguing that responsible engagement must go beyond developers and include the broader public: ‘AI has the potential to change the world for the better. Let’s make sure it’s not causing more harm at the same time.’ 

The full talk is available to watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V2UnKapYsI