Siri Beerends

Background

About Siri Beerends

RESEARCH FRAMEWORK People and societies increasingly understand themselves in the mirror of AI-technologies. Our communications, jobs, relationships, healthcare systems, welfare regimes, city governance, and educational systems are increasingly shaped by data-models and AI-systems. AI increasingly (mis)informs us about what is the self as well as the artefacts surrounding the self. Due to society’s preoccupation with artificial intelligence and robots becoming more “human-like”, have we come to overlook an important, inverse question: in what ways are humans and societies becoming more machine-like? EXPERTISE authenticity | emerging technologies | artificial unintelligence |(digital) culture I consider my previous jobs in the field of healthcare and social welfare as an important source of practical knowledge on human complexity. Currently, I combine my PhD research about authenticity and artificial (un)intelligence at the University of Twente with my work at SETUP Media Lab. I have investigated cultural negotiations of authenticity in the following contexts: • Medicalization and the use of pharmaceuticals (University of Amsterdam, 2011 – 2012) • Cosmetic surgery (Centre for Rotterdam Cultural Sociology, 2013 – 2016) • Social robotics (Erasmus University, Medical Ethics & Philosophy, 2017) • Human-machine complementarity (Medialab SETUP, 2018 - current) • Artificial Intelligence (PhD Research University of Twente, 2019 - current) STRENGTHS • Writing - scientific papers: - - - - - - - - - • Demystifying AI and emerging digital technologies • Contributing to ethical debates on emerging technologies • Critical, conceptual and holistic thinking