AI, Robotics and Digital Cultures
Some of the biggest challenges facing the world today concern the relations between humans and machines.
From artificial intelligence and machine learning to algorithms and automated systems, the embedding of machines poses questions about what it is to be human, and calls into question the very fabric of social interaction, the ordering of human relations and the manner by which we are governed. We ask:
- How are machines changing the way that we order, think, decide and create?
- What is it to live with, alongside and beyond machines and how does that affect the distribution of relations of power?
Our researchers
- Faisal Alkhatib - SAINTS PhD candidate
- Prenika Anand - SAINTS PhD candidate
- Professor David Beer
- Dr Jenn Chubb
- Dr Phil Garnett
- Dr Zoe Handley
- Deeba Javadpour - SAINTS PhD candidate
- Fiona Lodge - SAINTS PhD candidate
- Dr Darren Reed
- Professor Tom Stoneham
- Dr Frank Soboczenski
- Professor TT Arvind
Selected key publications
- Wallace, A., Beer, D., Burrows, R., Ciocǎnel, A. & Cussens, J. (2026) ‘Algorithmic tenancies and the ordinal tenant’, Housing Studies 41(2): 331-351.
- Beer, D. (2025) ‘N. Katherine Hayles, The Cosmic Web and the Problem of Articulation’, Media Theory 9(2): 165-190.
- Beer, D. (2023) The Tensions of Algorithmic Thinking: Automation, Intelligence and the Politics of Knowing. Bristol: Bristol University Press.
- Chubb, J. A., Missaoui, S., Concannon, S., Maloney, L., & Walker, J. A. (2022). Interactive storytelling for children: A case-study of design and development considerations for ethical conversational AI. International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction, 32, [100403].
- Townsend, B., Paterson, C., Arvind, T. T., Nemirovsky, G., Calinescu, R., Cavalcanti, A., ... & Thomas, A. (2022). From pluralistic normative principles to autonomous-agent rules. Minds and Machines, 32(4), 683-715.
- Chubb, J., & Beer, D. (2023). Establishing counterpoints in the sonic framing of AI narratives. AI and Ethics, 1-12.
- Tassopoulou, V., Kasmanoff, N., Soni, V., Khoo, F.S., Ward, K., Karkada, D., Ramasubramanian, M., Ramachandran, R., Soboczenski, F. and Bilinski, P., 2021, December. Generating informative and accurate descriptions of natural hazards and phenomena using large transformer-based models. In AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts (Vol. 2021, pp. IN31A-06).