Dr Beth Singler
Junior Research Fellow in Artificial Intelligence
Homerton College, University of Cambridge
Cambridge, United Kingdom
Biography
Beth Singler is the Junior Research Fellow in Artificial Intelligence at Homerton College, University of Cambridge, working on ‘what you think about machines that might think’. As an anthropologist, her research focusses on the human, and considers the social, ethical, and religious implications in developments in Artificial Intelligence and robotics. She is an experienced social and digital anthropologist and her first book is the first in-depth ethnography of the ‘Indigo Children’ - a re-conception of both children and adults using the language of evolution and spirituality in the New Age movement.
Beth has spoken about her research on AI at the Hay Festival as one of the Hay 30 to watch, as well as at New Scientist Live, Ars Electronica, the Edinburgh Science Festival, Cheltenham Science Festival, the Science Museum, the Barbican, and has appeared several times on BBC Click and BBC Click Live. She has appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Start the Week, the Today Programme, Beyond Belief, and the Sunday Programme, and presented an essay on Radio 3 for the Year of Blade Runner. She has been interviewed by Forbes, the Radical AI podcast, New Scientist, and CNBC, among others. She was one of the Evening Standard’s Progress 1000 in both 2017 and 2018, and one of the 21 to Watch in 2020. In 2019 she was one of Sifted’s 30 AI People in Europe to follow on Twitter. Her short documentary on whether robots should feel pain, Pain in the Machine, won the AHRC Best Research Film of the Year Award, 2017, and was the first of a four-part series including Friend in the Machine (2017), Good in the Machine (2018), and Ghost in the Machine (2019).
Honoraria Titles
Major Prizes
Religion, Philosophy & History Interests
History of Religion, History of Science, Philosophy of Religion
Science & Technology Interests
Anthropology, Biotechnology, Information Technology
Website
Publications
