Thomas Lingard: Navigating change in a fast-moving world

Were there particular experiences during your time at Hills Road that lit a spark for you?

I remember having a lot of fun here. It felt like a really important transition period between school and the real world. I loved studying new subjects and being part of student council. My proudest achievement was persuading the college to let us install an old vinyl jukebox in the basement - a particular triumph of the student council that year!

Can you summarise your journey from Hills Road to leading a global think tank?

After Hills Road, I went to Durham and then joined Unilever on their graduate scheme. I had always been active on environmental issues, and Unilever’s early work on environmental management appealed to me. Once inside the company, I became frustrated that the sustainability programme was not properly resourced, so I found my way into a junior role in Environmental Affairs, which became a great starting point.

Later I spent two years on secondment at Green Alliance  - a leading UK environmental think tank. It was a small team with strong access to politicians, and I saw how effectively they could shift policy. That experience convinced me that a large international company could have even greater impact. I returned to Unilever in 2010 to help shape global sustainability strategy and eventually founded the Global Advocacy Team to influence climate and development policy.

What made you shift from climate policy into AI and emerging technologies?

Around 2017 and 2018, after the optimism of the Paris Agreement, I saw a surge of climate disinformation online. InfluenceMap’s work showed how big tech platforms were amplifying harmful content, and meetings with major tech companies opened my eyes to the power of their algorithms and the lack of interest in fixing the problems those algorithms create. I realised I needed to understand this better, so I joined Cambridge’s first master’s in AI Ethics and Society. That opened my mind to a wide range of risks in emerging technologies.

What is the Centre for Future Generations, and why does it exist?

The Centre for Future Generations is a new, philanthropically-funded think tank based in Brussels. We work across advanced AI, biotechnology, climate interventions and neurotechnology. One of the core problems is that technologies are moving incredibly fast, so policymakers are suddenly confronted with real‑world impacts and asking, “What should we be doing about this? What risks should we be preparing for?” They don’t have immediate access to the right expertise, and they don’t want to read hundreds of technical papers. They want an incisive distillation: what matters politically, what to worry about, and what policy options are actually on the table. CFG exists to provide that independent, neutral guidance.

These technologies are very different. What connects them?

They are all novel, fast-moving and poorly governed. AI has some emerging structures, but neurotechnology and biotechnology have far less. Climate interventions such as solar radiation modification have no international governance at all. There is nothing to stop someone with enough resources from deploying this technology tomorrow. The common thread is the speed of development combined with the absence of rules. We have people pointing that out to the policymakers, saying you might want to consider all kinds of security and environmental impacts - and actually we’ve done some of the work for you already.

Why do you say these technologies shape the global balance of power?

Once you look closely, you see how quickly control of these technologies could shift geopolitics. There are optimistic scenarios, but also scenarios where particular actors gain disproportionate power. Technology investment is largely now from the private sector, and the money flows toward profit, not necessarily toward public benefit. At the same time, military and security actors are exploring uses of AI and biotech in ways that are alarming. This risks creating a literal arms-race dynamic, especially between the United States and China, and so called ‘middle powers’ such as the UK and the European Union have to decide how to respond.

Can you explain the debate between AI ethics and AI safety?

When I studied in 2021, the divide was not explicit, but now it is a very active debate. One community focuses on existential risk and the possibility of super-intelligent systems that are not aligned with human values. Another group focuses on present harms such as structural bias, discrimination and erosion of privacy. Each group thinks the other is missing the point. When you listen carefully, you realise both perspectives reflect real concerns. It makes this a very complicated space for policymakers who need to consider both risks that are harming people today versus risks that could harm everyone in the future?

What developments in neurotechnology should people be paying attention to?

Consumer neurotechnology is advancing quickly with almost no regulation. Apple, for example, has patented technology that reads EEG-type signals and infer emotional state - and this tech could be integrated into Airpods. By clicking accept on a third party app, users could grant access to a continuous flow of brain-derived data. With this data in the advertising ecosystem, it could be used, for example, to target people precisely when they’re most emotionally vulnerable. This creates an entirely new category of personal data, and at the moment it has no special protections. Medical neurotech is regulated, but consumer neurotech has far less regulation applied.

How do you manage the emotional weight of working on existential risks?

I’ve had the privilege to attend a number of retreats at Plum Village in France, founded by the Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. These retreats bring climate leaders together to practise grounding, presence and acceptance. Temperatures are rising and political progress is uncertain, so these practices help me manage. That’s my reset: accepting that maybe it won’t end well, maybe it will, maybe we can’t know… What we can do is focus on the quality of the work.

What advice would you give young people who want to make a difference?

If you're coming from Hills Road in Cambridge, it’s a great place to be starting out from. Be ambitious and make use of the opportunities you have. What one person can do alone is limited. What matters is the impact we can have by helping each other.

We are all part of a bigger ecosystem of actors supporting and informing each other's perspectives. If you can get into the habit of thinking, “it doesn't really matter what I do alone, it matters what we can all help each other do,” then the path will unfold.

Thomas Lingard, Class of 1995