Henry Franks
I've spent my career building and architecting production software and AI systems — as a founder, engineer, CTO, and chief architect — and teaching the responsible-AI side of the field, with annual guest lectures at King's College London and Notre Dame. My doctoral research was on trust and cooperation in open systems of autonomous agents.
Career
I'm based in London. Over fifteen-plus years I've been a startup founder and CTO, a principal engineer, a data scientist, and a chief architect, across energy, insurance and data, and climate-policy AI. I'm currently chief architect at a climate-policy AI non-profit. I am hands-on with full-stack systems, cloud infrastructure on AWS, data and ML, and GenAI in production; while providing strategic direction and long-term foresight.
Most people who talk about responsible AI haven't shipped production systems; most people shipping GenAI don't dwell on the responsibility part. I've been fortunate to work across both.
Research
My PhD, from the University of Warwick, asked how trust, reputation, and cooperation emerge in open systems of autonomous agents. The publications have around 140 citations, mainly at AAMAS and in Springer journals.
Teaching
I guest lecture annually on responsible AI at King's College London and the University of Notre Dame. Some of the frameworks I teach are the same ones I use in client engagements.