William Hohnen-Ford

I am a Research Assistant and DPhil Candidate at the Design Bioethics Lab within the Neuroscience, Ethics & Society (NEUROSEC) research group. My research focuses on the effects of AI chatbots on people’s socio-emotional lives, and on how these technologies can be designed and governed to empower them.

I earned my undergraduate degree from University College London (UCL), where I concentrated on the ethical implications of using developmental neuroscience on poverty and inequality research to guide socioeconomic policy. I subsequently completed an MSc in Cognitive and Decision Sciences, where I used computational methods and social media data to investigate the longitudinal effects of psychedelic use.

At Oxford, I have contributed to several AI-related research projects, including SHIFT-AI  and CONSIDER. My current work brings together my interests in cognitive science, technology, and ethics to understand how AI is shaping young people’s social and emotional lives and how we can build safer, more ethical AI for them.

I have also interned at The Constitution Unit where I worked in the analysis team for The Future of Democracy in the UK projects.