In December 2023, Vian Bakir (Professor in Journalism & Political Communication) participated as an expert in lecture on The Future of AI – Dream or a Nightmare? - in a 6 minute disinformation and AI section for The Royal Institution's Christmas Lectures on The Truth about AI, in conversation with University of Oxford's Prof. Mike Woolridge. This was livecast with a studio audience of teenagers and watched by their parents in and production team in adjoining rooms. It was broadcasted on BBC4 on 28th December 2023(8pm), and is freely available on iplayer for UK audiences. For international audiences, this is freely available on The Royal Institution's Youtube channel (which has 1.56M subscribers): https://www.rigb.org/christmas-lectures/watch-2023-christmas-lectures (Vian’s bit is from 20.17 minutes – 26.30).

With 2024 dubbed the year of elections worldwide, Vian was asked to reflect on what she saw as the key issue with disinformation, AI and politics. She also advised the production team on wider disinformation and deepfake issues presented in the lecture. She then participated in online chats with UK-wide Schools as part of the I'm a Scientist, Get me out of here - follow on expert interactions with schools and children across the country, across Jan 2024 where she answered questions about AI and about being an expert. (The aim is to inspire children to want to become a scientist, and to improve public knowledge of science.)