Omer Bilgin, a Data & Society affiliate, is an AI governance researcher who is deeply passionate about the intersection of ethics, emerging technologies, and democracy. He is currently pursuing a master of studies in practical ethics at the University of Oxford, where his research focuses on clarifying whether and in what ways modern technological innovations can help existing democratic practices better fulfil the core normative ideals of participatory democracy. His past research has investigated several critical areas in AI governance, including “responsibility gaps” arising from harms caused by autonomous systems, moral decision-making procedures in self-driving vehicles that face inevitable crash situations, patterns of global coordination and fragmentation in AI policy, and the integration of democratic inputs into AI development and governance efforts. Omer is part of the Oxford AI Society’s Safety and Governance team, through which he regularly organises community events, and a co-founder of deliberAIde, an early-stage startup that is developing AI-powered tools designed to make face-to-face deliberative engagements more inclusive, efficient, and impactful. He served as a community note-taker for Data & Society’s 2024 Participatory AI Methods seminar series and led its closing session. Omer holds a bachelor of arts in philosophy from University College London.