Artificial humanities

Hello!

My name is Nina Beguš and I'm a researcher and lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley. 

I lead the Artificial Humanities Group where we focus on the intersection of humanities and AI across three research areas: cultural imaginary, writing creativity, and philosophy of science and technology. Do not hesitate to reach out if you would like to join the research group or are curious about our work. We'll start with our Slack channel and go from there.

Books

• My first book, titled Artificial Humanities: A Fictional Perspective on Language in AI is coming out with the University of Michigan Press, with Chinese (East China Normal University Press) and Slovenian translations to follow (Cankarjeva založba).
  Preorder from the press with a 40% discount code PREORDERS25. European orders via Liverpool UP. Also available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
  
  The book presents my research program on how the study of fiction and the humanities can contribute to the development of technologies. It focuses on the history and future of AI-based language technologies - ranging from chatbots, virtual assistants, social robots, to neurotech and large language models - and draws parallels with both canonical and lesser-known science fiction texts and films.
  
  A summary and recording of my recent talk on AI and fiction can be found on the BIDS website and YouTube.

• I edited a volume of essays by professional writers on AI entering the writing and reading space, titled First Encounters with AI: Writers on Writing, forthcoming with the University of Michigan Press.
  
  The contributing authors are Hannes Bajohr, Qiufan Chen, Ted Chiang, Joseph Dumit, Gerardo Con Diaz, Jasmin B. Frelih, Annelyse Gelman, Katy Ilonka Gero, Sheila Heti, Ken Liu, Nicholas Nardini, Allison Parrish, Alex Saum-Pascual, Sasha Stiles, Iain S. Thomas, and James Yu.

• I am co-writing a book with Eoin Brodie on planetary information flows, grounded in thermodynamics and the Earth system science approach.

• My next book, in initial stages, lies at the intersection of bioethics and fiction. An example of this research is my essay titled 'The Identity Problem' in Prenatal Testing, which won the Voices in Bioethics award.

Affiliations
At UC Berkeley, I'm affiliated with the Center for Science, Technology, Medicine & Society (CSTMS), Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (IEEES), and Berkeley Institute of Data Science (BIDS). I collaborate with Brodie's group at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

I am a part of the Center for Contemporary Cultures of Text at Aarhus University, for which we have been awarded the Danish National Foundation Grant.
I am affiliated with Antikythera, the Berggruen Institute think tank on planetary computation.

Industry Collaborations
I am the founder of InterpretAI, a consulting and product development company with a focus on understanding and interpretability of AI.
Previously, as a Senior Researcher at the Berggruen Institute and ToftH, I helped to implement a novel method of process-based consulting for startups and big tech companies.
I 2024, organized a symposium on Understanding AI through UC Berkeley's Social Science Matrix, aimed at bringing together research on interpretability from academia, industry, and think tanks.

Service
I serve on MLA Task Force groups on generative AI and world languages and on AI and research.
I've been involved in collegiate residential life since 2013, first as a Graduate Commons community advisor and then as a resident tutor in Mather House. I currently live in Bowles Hall, the oldest residential college in the U.S. (est. 1928).

Public Engagement
My research has been covered by The Independent, The Financial Times, Scientific American, and similar media outlets. Please see more on the Media Coverage section.