Chris Reed

Chris Reed is Professor of Computer Science and Philosophy at the University of Dundee in Scotland, where he heads the Centre for Argument Technology. Chris has been working at the overlap between argumentation theory and artificial intelligence for over twenty years, developing foundational theory in philosophy, linguistics and cognitive science that facilitates the development of practical AI applications. The goal is to help improve, teach, track and navigate the discussions and debates that run our governments, structure scientific research, underpin the corporate boardroom, drive legal process and frame religious beliefs.

Academic software from the Centre is relied upon by hundreds of thousands of users in over 80 countries, whilst for non-specialist audiences, the Centre has been commissioned by the BBC twice: once to develop analytics which were livestreamed in accompaniment to Radio 4 broadcasts; and again to build software helping pupils to identify fake news — software that has now been deployed into every secondary school in the UK.

His research has attracted over £6m in funding and has drawn on partnership with both SMEs and corporates (most recently with IBM). He has published over 200 papers in the area, including establishing basic interoperability standards and pioneering infrastructure for the management of large scale datasets for deep learning. Commercially, he has served as an executive director of three start-up companies, and consulted for several more.

In the public sphere, Chris has appeared on TV and radio in the UK and further afield, including BBC TV, BBC Scotland, BBC Worldservice, Talk Radio (UK national), Newstalk (Irish national), and in the press with New Scientist, BBC News, Financial Times, Newsweek, The Independent, The Guardian, Wired Magazine, Newsweek and more.