Highlights of AIT’s 2025 Forum on Norms for the Digital Age: from Students to States

Past masters of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists and Presidents of the BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT as well computer scientists, writers and academics attended AIT’s 2025 Forum, which took place on 28 January at the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists’ Livery Hall and online.

Defining Norms in the Digital Context

In his introduction AIT’s chair of trustees, John Carrington, told the audience how the event builds on the charity’s extensive oral and visual record of people involved in IT since the 1950s. He emphasized that “AIT is about people, hence the topic today Norms for the Digital age, is about how people behave.” The dictionary definition says, our shared beliefs or values and the human behaviour that support these within a given society and the Forum’s discussions are an open addition to our virtual archive, accessible to all without charge.

With the progress and adoption of new technologies our contexts of use have shaped the norms governing these different information and communication technologies, such as the internet, social media and the smartphone. Now with the addition of generative AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, experts at the Forum discussed how together they are affecting professionalism, journalism, education and international cyber security.

Forum Sessions and Key Speakers

The forum consisted of four sessions led by a multi-disciplinary set of academics, practitioners and leaders from IT, civil society and business. The core discussions are summarized below:

  • Evolution of Digital Norms: Sociologist, Professor Rich Ling, opened the Forum up with a talk on the evolution of digital norms.
  • Professionalism Roundtable: A discussion arguing for a more professional IT sector, chaired by Professor Jim Norton OBE and featuring Sir Kenneth Olisa OBE, Paul Martynenko MBE, and BCS President Alastair Revell.
  • Journalism and Economics: Journalist Bill Thompson explained how digital technology has destroyed the economic model of the industry.
  • Education Challenges: Teacher Ravi Chagger and coach Kieran Gilmurray talked about the challenges and opportunities digital technology provides for education.

Academic Research and Cyber Norms

The forum also included three academic papers providing deep insights into specific digital sectors:

  • Dr Kate Bradley on Telephone Helplines.
  • Patricia Esteve-González on Cybersecurity Capacities for the Application of UN Cyber Norms.
  • Dr George Zoukas and Dr Jonathan Foster on Towards Assuring Data Fairness in Trustworthy Machine Learning.

The Impact of Violating Norms

Professor Bill Dutton, AIT Trustee and chair of the Forum Programme Committee, said: “I think norms are shaping, as the title of Professor Rich Ling’s opening keynote speech indicates ‘everything everywhere and all at once’.” He noted that norms are really critical, they make a difference and if we violate norms, that makes a difference, it really matters to people.

When norms are broken or when somebody violates a norm, that’s what really focuses our attention on norms. The panel on professionalism illustrated that it is a norm in itself, and when that’s violated, it really damages society and this was highlighted by the panel with the Horizon scandal and the importance of trust and their drive to create professional qualifications across IT.

As Professor Dutton observed, that professionalism is really something that resonates throughout all the areas we covered including IT, journalism and schools. Furthermore, computers, the internet and machine learning are all challenging IT, professionalism and schools in terms of what we do.