Dr Robert Elliott Smith is an AI expert, complexity scientist, entrepreneur, writer, and public speaker. He provides independent Technical Due Diligence for investors. He also advises founders and boards on AI Strategy and works with companies as a fractional CTO.

He brings more than 30 years of experience in AI across the private and public sectors. He developed TRL 1 technology as an academic, and followed it through to TRL 9 deployment in systems used globally for decades. He served as Director of AI and Data Science at Digital Catapult, the UK’s advanced digital technology innovation centre. He co-founded BOXARR and served as its CTO, helping design and code digital twin software used in production at major organisations around the world.

He is the author of over 100 academic papers, with an h-score of approximately 31. He is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Computer Science at University College London, where he co-founded the Centre for the Study of Decision-Making Uncertainty.

Growing up in Alabama during the Civil Rights movement shaped how Robert thinks about bias and whose interests technology serves. That perspective informs his work on AI systems that people can understand and scrutinise. He is the author of Rage Inside the Machine: The Prejudice of Algorithms and How to Stop the Internet Making Bigots of Us All. He speaks publicly about AI, bias, and the choices people make when they design and deploy technology.