Jessica Riches

AI Safety

Digital capability and effective regulation have always been at the heart of my career as I transitioned away from my cyber-utopian beliefs; I even did my university dissertation on the impact of social media on modern fiction back in 2011, which introduced me to the work of Douglass Rushkoff and Cory Doctorow.

But my interest in AI safety started in 2016, inside UCL’s machine learning department, working with Emotech on their CES award-winning AI assistant. I saw this small team build something impressive and never stopped thinking about implications of scaling that. Beyond that, I became fascinated by what I now know to be model welfare and digital personhood.

I’ve been reading, writing, and making films in this space ever since – and since the explosion of interest in attention on AI capabilities, this has formed part of my comms work.

Policy and consultancy work:

  • Consultant to the Parliamentary office of Kanishka Narayan, UK Minister for AI and Online Safety (2025)
  • Evidence to the House of Lords debate on intimate image rights (2017)
  • Editor, Create.Refresh campaign against Article 13 copyright directive (2018)
  • Speaker, All Party Parliamentary Group on Cybersecurity — Fake News Committee on algorithmic disinformation (2016)
  • Consultant, Chartered Institute of PR Social Media Ethics framework (2013)
  • Digital Lead, Hacked Off campaign to implement findings of the Leveson Inquiry into press abuses (2012)
  • Regular media talking head on social media and politics, including live segment on Channel 4 News following Twitter’s IPO (2013), character in documentary The Real Social Network (2012), and featured in books Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere (Paul Mason, 2012) and Escape: How a generation shaped, destroyed and survived the internet (2023, Marie le Conte)

Creative projects:

  • [TBA] – Feature film project to be announced (2027)
  • GOODBYE, WORLD – Substack and OnlyFans dedicated to Peter Thiel (2026)
  • GOODBYE, WORLD anthology – 8x short stories showing AI safety issues through fictionalised scenarios (2026)
  • GOOSEBUMPS – award-winning short film about model welfare, screened at festivals worldwide including Miami Sci-Fi Festival, London Sci-Fi Festival, AI International Festival (2025)
  • THE LOOP – adaptation of YA novel series set in near-future AI dystopia (2024)
  • BEAUTIFUL THINGS – award-winning short film about digital minds, screened at festivals worldwide including Filmquest, DIFF, and New Renaissance (2024)
  • TANGLED WHITE WIRES – monologue on the digitification of life, performed at the Arcola Theatre (2018)
  • TWO AI WALK INTO A BAR – short story about AI sentience and training, published in Bartleby Snopes journal (2017)

Community and research:

  • Visiting fellow on the inaugural Frame Fellowship, San Francisco — a programme for creators making content about existential risk from AI (2026)
  • Attendee, LA Tech Week closed door events on AI and the film industry
  • Attendee, Plum Village Monastery science retreat on consciousness and sentience (2025)
  • Speaker at CogX AI Summit, O2 Arena — “Can an AI get goosebumps?” — as part of the AI Goosebumps thinktank alongside Robbie Stamp (Bioss, Hitchhiker’s Guide rightsholder) and De Kai (ISCI, HKUST) (2023)

Press features: Channel 4 News, ITV News, BBC Radio, the Guardian, Reuters, TIME, New Statesman, the London Review of Books