Richard J Carter

Dr. Richard J. Carter is a complexity scientist and strategic leader operating at the intersection of artificial intelligence, global security, and planetary resilience.

Over a 25-year career, Dr. Carter has applied emerging technologies to solve extreme organisational and security challenges. His eclectic background ranges from producing BAFTA-nominated video games and co-founding the UK’s first national nanotechnology centre, to developing AI strategies for the UK government. He is regularly consulted by the United Nations and the UK Cabinet Office, with his work receiving high-profile coverage from The Economist, The Telegraph, the BBC, and the UK’s Deputy Prime Minister.

Currently a Senior Visiting Fellow and Strategic Advisor at The Alan Turing Institute, he has authored guidelines on the safe and effective use of AI for the intelligence community. He is the author of Cognitive Advantage (2021) and the upcoming Codex Automata. Through a philosophical and operational framework he calls "Responsilism" he explores how humanity must engineer better systems for integrating emerging technologies into our personal lives and society, empowering us to act wisely and ensure our long-term survival.

To anchor this theoretical work in physical reality, he founded TerraTrace - an expeditionary service collecting environmental DNA (eDNA) from remote regions to provide "ground truth" data for ecological strategy. Dr. Carter tests the limits of his own resilience through ultramarathons and solo ascents, such as his unassisted climb of Australia’s Mount Sorrow, treating physical endurance as a necessary counterpart to intellectual rigour.

He holds a PhD in Complexity Science, an MBA, an MSc in Nanotechnology, a BSc in Computer Science, and a postgraduate certificate in Law. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA), a Chartered Fellow of the British Computer Society (FBCS), and maintains an honorary research position at the University of Bristol.