About Thinking in Public

I write about artificial intelligence and its impact on society. My focus is on how AI shapes power, work, values and worldviews, and on the choices we make when designing and deploying these systems. This blog offers clear, critical reflections on AI beyond the hype, connecting technology with ethics, governance and long-term societal consequences.

The title is a description of method rather than a slogan. Most of what appears here starts as a reaction to something concrete: a summit, a paper, a policy proposal, a question from a journalist. Writing it out in public, before it is polished into a lecture or a report, forces me to be precise about what I actually think and lets others push back while the argument is still forming.

Thinking in Public started in January 2026 and moved to this site in September 2026. Everything published so far is in the archive.

Who writes this blog

Virginia Dignum
Virginia Dignum

I am Virginia Dignum, Professor of Responsible Artificial Intelligence at Umeå University in Sweden, where I lead the AI Policy Lab. I work at the intersection of AI research and AI governance: co-chair of the ACM Technology Policy Council, member of UNESCO's expert group on the implementation of the AI Ethics Recommendation and of the OECD Expert Group on AI Futures, and previously a member of the United Nations High-Level Advisory Body on AI and of the European Commission's High-Level Expert Group on AI. My most recent book is The AI Paradox (Princeton University Press, 2026).

The views here are my own, written in a personal capacity, and do not represent the positions of any of the institutions I am affiliated with.

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Elsewhere

I also post shorter reflections on LinkedIn and Bluesky, and more formal work is listed on my university page. Comments and disagreement are welcome; the easiest way to reach me is by replying to any newsletter email.