Name: Andrew McStay

Position: Professor of Technology & Society

Email: [email protected]

Phone: +44 (0)1248 382740

Andrew McStay is Professor of Technology & Society at Bangor University, where he directs the Emotional AI Lab, an international research centre examining the social, ethical, and policy implications of artificial intelligence that interprets emotion and emulates empathy. This combines national polling, qualitative studies, law, politics, ethics, and technical inquiry to study and inform the responsible design and governance of empathic AI systems worldwide. Its recent projects span empirical, cross-cultural, and legal studies in the UK, US, Asia, Europe, and Africa.

McStay’s work sits at the intersection of AI law and governance, technology studies, and media and communications, focusing on how technologies that claim to “understand” or “feel” emotion are designed, deployed, and regulated. He chairs the IEEE P7014.1 Working Group on the Ethical Considerations of Emulated Empathy in Partner-based General-Purpose Artificial Intelligence Systems, which is developing global standards for empathic and companion AI.

He also advises regulators and policymakers internationally, including Ofcom, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

McStay’s research is supported by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), and his most recent book, Automating Empathy (Oxford University Press, 2024), examines how modern AI systems are reshaping relations between people and technology. His recent papers explore soft law, cross-cultural AI policy, and AI companions.

Research interest keywords

Artificial intelligence, biometrics, emotional AI, empathy (automated), law, media (digital/AI), philosophy, politics, standards (soft law)

Administrative responsibilities

Current

Director of the Emotional AI Lab, Research Commitee (focusing on "Impact"), College grant review panel, School Research Theme lead, and EDI Athena Swan membership

Recent

Senate membership (2022-current), Deputy Head of School (2020-2022), School Director of Impact (2019-2021), College Research executive member Impact (2019-2021), Uni-wide research governance member Impact (2019-2021), Uni-wide Research Communication Strategy Group Impact (2017-2019), Uni. interdisciplinary research leader (2017-current), Director of Media and Persuasive Communication network (2014-current), Media Course Directorship (2014-2017), Examinations Officer (2015-2019), Innovation Strategy Group member (2013-2015).

Current teaching:

AI Ethics (Year 2/3)

Privacy and the Media (Year 2/3) 

Digital Advertising (Year 2/3)

Introduction to Media, Journalism & Politics (Year 1)

PhD students:

• Chiemezie Ugochukwu, Cultural and Political Determinants of AI Scam Culture In Nigeria
• Laura Edwards, Policy and Experiences of Anti-Feminism and the Manosophere
• Pujia CHEN, The Influence of Douyin on Users' Intimate Relationships in China
• Tong Tong WU, Risk Communication on Social Media: Comparing Dissemination Models and Their Effects in China and the UK
• Mashavu Mohamed, From High-Context to Low-Context: Social Media and Cultural Transition in Zanzibar
• Qi QI. Citizen Journalism and Political Polarisation
• Yiyang Zhao, Social Media and China's Networked Political Communication
• Xin ZHAO, China-related economic responsibilities: Understanding China’s soft power projection through a critical discourse analysis of its transnational media institutions
• Dyfrig Jones, Convergence and Public Service Broadcasting in the UK, Ireland, and North America 
• Dita Legowo, Blurring Intimacy and Distance: An Online Webseries 
• Aliah Nur Mansor, Marketing and Online Fan Communities 

Consultancy: Inter-governmental, Government and Industry (recent/significant)

• 2024-ongoing: Ofcom Media Literacy Group
• 2024 IEEE CertifAIEd Authorized Lead Assessor for Autonomous Intelligent Systems
• 2024 ‘CreaTech’ delegate for The Royal Anniversary Trust and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport
• 2024-ongoing: Information Commissioner’s Office, Technology Advisory Panel
• 2024 qualification for IEEE CertifAIEd Authorized Lead Assessor for Autonomous Intelligent Systems.
• McStay, A. (2022) ‘Overview of emotion recognition trends, applications and issues of scientific validity’ Ada Lovelace Workshop on AI Act and Emotion Recognition.
• McStay, A. (2022-23) UK ICO’s Technology Advisory Panel member (biometrics)
• McStay, A. & Urquhart, l. (2022) UK ICO Technology and Innovation Foresight on future of transport (invited contribution).
• McStay, A. & Urquhart, l. (2022) UK ICO Technology and Innovation Foresight on biometrics (invited contribution).
• McStay, A. & Rosner, G. (2022) Welsh Government Digital Ethics Report Applying digital ethics to government and public services.
• McStay, A., Rosner, G., Miyashita, H. and Urquhart, l. (2020) Comment on Children’s Rights In Relation To Emotional AI And The Digital Environment for UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.
• Bakir, V. and McStay, A. (2020) Inquiry into the Impact of Social Media on Elections & Electoral Administration, INVITED submission to the Electoral Matters Committee, Parliament of Victoria, Australia.
• McStay cited/discussed in UNICEF (2020) Policy guidance on AI for children(input from McStay on Emotional AI) 
• Bakir, V., & McStay, A. 2020.invited report, Inquiry into the Impact of Social Media on Elections & Electoral Administration, Electoral Matters Committee, Parliament of Victoria (Australia)  
• McStay, A. and Rosner, G. (2020) Emotional AI and children: ethics, parents, governance (2020 Report).
• AGAINST OPACITY, OUTRAGE & DECEPTION: Towards an ethical code of conduct for transparent, explainable, civil & informative digital political campaigns (House of Lords Select Committee on Democracy & Digital Technologies, 2019).
• CULTURE CHANGE Incentivise political campaigners to run civil and informative election campaigns. (All-Party Parliamentary Group on Electoral Campaigning Transparency, 2019).
• Centre for data ethics and innovation (2020) Snapshot Series: Facial Recognition Technology (interview input from mcstay)
• Datafied Bearbaiting and Emotional AI: Anticipating the Quantified Jeremy Kyle Show (DCMS parliamentary inquiry into reality media, 2019)
• Emotional AI and Insurance: Online Targeting and Bias in Algorithmic Decision Making (UK Government, Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, 2019)
• 2019 UK Government Center for Data Ethics and Innovation (advisor on facial recognition technology)  
• 2019 Royal United Services Institute (UK Gov’ policing/defense think tank), workshop on shaping the state of machine learning algorithms within law enforcement  
• 2019 Advising UK Government, Open Innovation Group, on online targeting  
• 2019 Nexus Studio in AI ethics installation at London’s Barbican art centre  
• 2019 Advertising Standards Authority, advisor on biometrics.  
• 2019 CognitionX expert advisor
• 2018 Report on The Right To Privacy In The Age Of Emotional AI (for The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights)
• 2018 Invited participant: United Nations expert workshop on right to privacy in the digital age.
• 2018 Invited witness at UK Parliament, DCMS Committee's oral evidence session on Fake News.
• 2018 Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers Working Group voting member (P7000 on ethical design and P70002 on data privacy).
• 2018 Expert input on Re-Work AI white paper on Ethical Implications of AI.
• 2017 Report on Written Submissions On How To Combat Fake News (UK Parliament fake news inquiry).
• 2017 Report: And then there’s Emotional AI (For House of Lords Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence.
• 2017 Report: Fake News: Media Economics & Emotional Button-Pushing (UK Parliament fake news inquiry).
• 2017 House of Parliament presentation on development of fake news and branded content.
• 2016 Open Rights Group, academic advisor on data protection.
• 2016-2018 Advisory Board Member for Sensing Feeling (a retail consortia project exploring Emotional AI).
• 2015 UK Government, Office for Science, ‘Understanding Influence’ workshop/1000 word report.
• 2015 Information Commissioner’s Office, advisor and member of the Policy Delivery department.
• 2015 Committee of Advertising Practice, advisor on ethics of emotion-sensitive technology.
• 2015 Internet Advertising Bureau (Europe), advisor on ethics in digital advertising.

Consultancy: Academic

• 2024/5 AHRC Panel Member for AI & Society awards
• 2021: Ada Love Lace/RCA workshop on responsible and ethical AI to formulate next round of AHRC AI funding.
• 2020-2022: Advisory Board for PATH-AI (The Alan Turing Institute, University of Edinburgh and RIKEN in Japan)
• 2018: co-production of white paper to shape European Commission’s (EC) research agenda on the internet's impact on echo chambers, fake news and populism (H2020 framework and FP9). 
• 2017-current: Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) reviewer
• 2016-current: Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Peer College member
• 2017-current: External Examiner, Goldsmiths (Univ. of London), MA Advertising & Promotional Culture
• 2016-2017: MSA (Egypt)/Univ. of Bedfordshire, BA Mass Comms, Advertising & PR
• 2014-current: External Examiner: Falmouth University, BA Creative Advertising
• 2012-2015: External Examiner: Middlesex Univ., MSc Media Management
• 2013-current: International Assessor: Research Foundation Flanders.

Reviewing:

Journals: New Media & Society (Editor), Big Data & Society (Guest Editor), Theory, Culture & Society, Digital Journalism, International Journal of Communication, Journal of Cultural Economy, Telematics and Informatics, Social Science Computer Review, Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers Communications, Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI).

Subject Associations: Association of Internet Researchers, International Association for Media and Communication Research.

Book publishers: Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Emerald, Continuum, Routledge, Sage and Palgrave MacMillan.

Funders: AHRC (panel member), ESRC, EPSRC (as privacy expert), Research Foundation Flanders.

Invited presentations/keynotes (recent):

• 2025: Empathic AI at the Edge of Law: Companions, Governance Gaps and the Role of Technical Standards, China University of Political Science and Law, Beijing.
• 2025: A nascent standard for Social AI – P7014.1, Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, Cambridge UK.
• 2025: Artificial Intimacy, Real Risks: From Public Concerns to Technical Standards, Microsoft, Cambridge UK.
• 2025: Emotions and Digital Regulation and Strategy in the EU, EUDTP, European Parliament.
• 2025: The Ethical Implications of Empathic AI: Governance, Standards, and Public Trust, University of Swansea.
• 2025: Emotional AI Children, Companions and AI Empathy, Better Internet for Kids, European Commission, Amsterdam.
• 2025: Moving fast and breaking people, BRAID, University of Edinburgh.
• McStay, A. (2024) Soft Law Standards for Technologies that Gauge Intimate Life, Infosys and British High Commission, Bengaluru.
• McStay, A. (2024) When is Deception OK? Ethical Considerations of Emulated Empathy in AI (IEEE P7014.1). ISTAS, IEEE.
• McStay, A. (2024) Automating Empathy in Human-AI Partnerships: Issues, Ethics and Governance, IEEE Global lecture.
• McStay, A. (2024) BBC AI/Machine Learning community on AI companions and empathy.
• McStay, A. (2024) Automating Empathy, Establishing Standards and Good Governance, FENS-Chen Neuroscience Summer School, University of Lausanne.
• McStay, A. (2024) Automating Empathy: Developing Cross-Cultural Soft Law Standards for Artificial Partners based on Foundational AI, China University of Politics and Law, Beijing.
• McStay, A. (2023) Creating Trustworthy Human Machine Interactions in Cars: The Case of Regulating Emotional Artificial Intelligence, 2023 Law and Technology Conference – National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan.
• McStay, A. (2023) Automating Empathy and the Public Good: The Unique Case of Health. Artificial ntelligence, health care, and ethics conference. Newcastle University.
• McStay, A. (2023) Replika in The Metaverse. MMU/DCMS/DSIT.
• McStay, A. (2023) Edinburgh Futures Institute. Technomoral Conversation on Technologically Mediated Intimacy.
• McStay, A. (2022) AI Ethics and Emotion Recognition. Keynote. Serbian National Internet Domain Name Registry Foundation (DIDS 2022 conference).
• McStay, A. (2022) Intelligent Machines, Emotions and Our Planet. Keynote. Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences.
• McStay, A. (2021) Emotional Artificial Intelligence and Regulation of Content Recommendation Systems, Digital Society Lab. Belgrade.
• McStay, A. (2021) Gauging civic feeling of emotion recognition: ethics, policy, and citizen opinion, UCLIC, University College London.
• McStay, A. (2021) Automating Empathy: Trajectory, Implications and Citizen Views, University of Edinburgh.
• McStay, A. (2021) Automating Empathy: Social Impact, Mediated Emotion and Subjectivity, IEEE SSIT Special lecture.

Funding (see projects)

Visiting Professorships

2026/forthcoming, China University of Political Science and Law

Fellowships

• 2025/6 (forthcoming) University of Berkeley, California, USA.
• 2019 Visiting Fellow at the Flemish Expert Centre on Data & Society, Uni. of Leuven, Belgium.
• 2019 William Evans Fellowship, of Otago in New Zealand.

Artwork   

• Automating Empathy – A Short Film (Academic advisor & co-producer, McStay; written and narrated by Ben Bland; hand-crafted filmmaking, blending paper art, stop motion, time lapse and live action by Conor Flanagan & Maria Figueiredo, with original foley & music by Steve & Dave Elton).
• Aura (2019): Academic advisor & co-producer, McStay. Lead artist,Ronan Devlin. Based on McStay’s emotional AI work, this is been shown in Leeds, Salford, Lancaster and London (Canary Wharf). Approx. 100,000 in-person views.
• Veillance (2017): Team McStay, Ronan Devlin (lead artist), Vian Bakir (academic), Ant Dickinson (sound), Carwyn Edwards (software), Michael Flückiger (graphics) and Gillian Jein (academic).

Media appearances and public engagement:

• Interviews: MIT tech Review, Buzzfeed, Scientific American, The Sun, New York Post, The Guardian, The Register, ABC Radio (Australia), Studio City for RTV Slovenija, Canal+ (France), BBC Futures (USA), BBC Radio 4, BBC Wales, BBC Worldwide to discuss technology. Writing for industry outlets includes: Information Week, Information Age, WPP, ESOMAR, Privacy & Business Law and The Conversation. Documentary appearances: ‘Drawing the Line’ (Sensum) on emotional AI, ‘Political Economy of Media’ (Sage), and ‘Advertising’ (Lambert Productions).

• Journalism: I write for The Conversation on matters involving advertising, technology and privacy. All articles available here. I have have also written for Sparksheet/WPP, an advertising industry publication. See here.

• Salon: invited discussion member at Privacy, Protection, Publicity: Does your Freedom have Boundaries? Dialogue, Shoreditch, London.

Teaching awards:

• Learning & Teaching Award (2008) from HEFCE/TQEF recognising excellence in teaching and learning support.
• Learning & Teaching Award (2007) from HEFCE/TQEF recognising excellence in teaching and learning support.

Memberships:

Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers; International Communication Association; Media, Communications & Cultural Studies Association; Association of Internet Researchers; International Association for Media & Communication Research; Authors’ Licensing & Collecting Society; Personal Data Trust Network (Digital Catapult).

Blog

Various lapsed blogs can be found online, but I'm active on Twitter @digi-ad.

Proposals for PhD-level projects in policy and AI, emotion and technology, science and technology studies, data ethics, and privacy, all welcome.