Dr Beth Singler is the Research Associate on the “Human Identity in an age of Nearly-Human Machines” project at the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion. She is exploring the social, ethical, philosophical and religious implications of advances in Artificial Intelligence and robotics. As a part of the project she is producing a series of short documentaries: Pain in the Machine and Friend in the Machine are complete. Pain in the Machine won the 2017 AHRC Best Research Film of the Year Award.
Beth is also an Associate Research Fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, collaborating on a CFI/Royal Society project on ‘AI Narratives’ with Claire Craig, Stephen Cave, Sarah Dillon and Kanta Dihal. In 2017/18 she will be on the advisory board for the RSA/Google DeepMind Citizen Juries.
Beth has appeared on Radio4’s Today, Sunday and Start the Week programmes discussing AI, robots, and pain. In 2017 she spoke at the Hay Festival as one of the ‘Hay 30’, the 30 best speakers to watch. She was also one of the Evening Standard’s Progress 1000 – the list of the most influential people in various fields.
She has also spoken on AI and human identity at the Science Museum, Cheltenham Science Festival, the Barbican, the Being Human Festival, and the Cambridge Festival of Ideas. In 2018 she will be speaking at the Edinburgh Science Festival, the Cheltenham Science Festival, and New Scientist Live.
Beth is an experienced social and digital anthropologist, and her first academic book is a ground breaking in-depth ethnography of the ‘Indigo Children’ – a New Age re-conception of both children and adults using the language of science, evolution, and spirituality.
