Beth Singler

Singler completed an undergraduate degree in Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Cambridge, focusing on religious studies and the sociology and anthropology of religion.{{citation needed|date=February 2021}} After graduating, she spent nine years working in London as a freelance scriptwriter and developer, which included completing a postgraduate diploma in Script Development with the National Film and Television School in 2007.{{citation needed|date=February 2021}}

Singler returned to Cambridge in 2010 to begin an MPhil in Theology and Religious Studies, completing a master’s thesis on the religious interpretations of anorexia amongst the Pro-Ana Movement.{{Cite journal|date=|title="Skeletons into Goddesses": Creating Religion, the Case of the Pro-Ana Movement and Anamadim|url=https://www.academia.edu/16990229|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=|website=|last1=Singler|first1=Beth}} Her subsequent PhD thesis was the first ethnography of the Indigo Children, a New Age idea with online communities and discourse. Her thesis was published as a monograph in 2017, as The Indigo Children: New Age Experimentation with Self and Science.{{Cite book|last=|first=|title=The Indigo Children: New Age Experimentation with Self and Science|url=https://ixtheo.de/Record/894930451|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=|series=Routledge new religions|year=2018|publisher=Routledge, Taylor & Francis|isbn=9781472489630}}

In 2016, Singler joined the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion (St Edmund's College, University of Cambridge) as a post-doctoral research associate on the ‘Human Identity in the Age of Nearly Human Machines’ project on the implications of AI on our understanding of what it means to be. She embarked on a film making project with DragonLight Films, producing four short documentaries over the next two years. The first, Pain in the Machine, won the Best Research Film of the Year award from the AHRC’s Research in Film Awards in 2017.{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=AHRC Research in Film Awards 2017|url=https://ahrc.ukri.org/research/readwatchlisten/features/best-research-film-of-the-year-winner/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200815164022/https://ahrc.ukri.org/research/readwatchlisten/features/best-research-film-of-the-year-winner/ |archive-date=2020-08-15 |access-date=|website=}}

She was made an associate fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence in 2016.{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=Beth Singler profile LCFI|url=http://lcfi.ac.uk/about/team/beth-singler/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200924213300/http://lcfi.ac.uk/about/team/beth-singler/ |archive-date=2020-09-24 |access-date=|website=}} She was a founding member of the AI Narratives research project with the LCFI and the Royal Society, which led to a Royal Society report in 2018.{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=Portrayals and Perceptions of AI and Why They Matter|url=https://royalsociety.org/-/media/policy/projects/ai-narratives/AI-narratives-workshop-findings.pdf|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191023214220/https://royalsociety.org/-/media/policy/projects/ai-narratives/AI-narratives-workshop-findings.pdf |archive-date=2019-10-23 |access-date=|website=}} She was one of the Co-Principal Investigators for the Global AI Narratives project, funded by the Templeton World Charitable Foundation and Google DeepMind, until 2019.

In 2018 she was appointed Junior Research Fellow in Artificial Intelligence at Homerton College, University of Cambridge.

She was a member of the UK Advisory Board for “Citizenship in the Digital Age”, a Templeton project.{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=Citizen in a Networked Age|url=https://citizenshipinanetworkedage.org/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200506132746/https://citizenshipinanetworkedage.org/ |archive-date=2020-05-06 |access-date=|website=}} She co-chaired the advisory committee for the Royal Society for the Arts/Google DeepMind Forum on Ethical AI.{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=Forum for Ethical AI – Advisory Board|url=https://www.thersa.org/projects/archive/economy/forum-for-ethical-ai/beth-singler|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201026044339/https://www.thersa.org/projects/archive/economy/forum-for-ethical-ai/beth-singler |archive-date=2020-10-26 |access-date=|website=}}

She was one of the speakers in the Hay Festival’s Cambridge Series in 2017, as well as being one of the ‘Hay 30’, as a part of the festival’s 30th anniversary celebrations.{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=22 May 2017|title=Hay Festival 'Hay 30' brochure|url=https://issuu.com/timsavage/docs/hay_17_240mm_x_230mm_hr|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=|website=}} Sections of her talk have been used in a Hay Festival podcast, alongside Ian McEwan, Garry Kasparov, Stephen Fry, and Marcus De Sautoy.{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=Hay Festival Podcast, S2 Ep3|url=https://www.hayfestival.com/podcast|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200418233707/https://www.hayfestival.com/podcast |archive-date=2020-04-18 |access-date=|website=}}

• The Indigo Children: New Age Experimentation with Self and Science, 2019 Routledge {{ISBN|9780367884444}}

• “Blessed by the Algorithm”: Theistic Conceptions of Artificial Intelligence as Entanglements of AI and Religion (2020){{Cite journal|date=December 2020|title="Blessed by the Algorithm": Theistic Conceptions of Artificial Intelligence as Entanglements of AI and Religion|journal=AI & Society|volume=35|issue=4|pages=945–955|doi=10.1007/s00146-020-00968-2|last1=Singler|first1=Beth|pmid=32355422|pmc=7191134}}
• The AI Creation Meme: A Case Study of the New Visibility of Religion in Artificial Intelligence Discourse (2020){{Cite journal|title=The AI Creation Meme: A Case Study of the New Visibility of Religion in Artificial Intelligence Discourse|year=2020|doi=10.3390/rel11050253|doi-access=free|last1=Singler|first1=Beth|journal=Religions|volume=11|issue=5|page=253}}
• Artificial Intelligence and the Parent/Child Narrative (2020){{Cite book|title=AI Narratives|chapter=Artificial Intelligence and the Parent–Child Narrative|chapter-url=https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780198846666.001.0001/oso-9780198846666-chapter-12|access-date=|year=2020|doi=10.1093/oso/9780198846666.003.0012|isbn=978-0-19-884666-6|last1=Singler|first1=Beth|pages=260–283}}
• Conceiving AI: Creation and the Parent/Child Narrative in Blade Runner 2049 (2019){{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=Conceiving AI: Creation and the Parent/Child Narrative in Blade Runner 2049|url=https://philarchive.org/archive/WILFMT-2v1|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=|website=}}
• An Ethnographic Discussion of Existential Hope and Despair in AI Apocalypticism (2019){{Cite journal|title=An Ethnographic Discussion of Existential Hope and Despair in AI Apocalypticism|journal=Zygon |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/zygo.12494|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=|year=2019|volume=54|issue=1|pages=156–176|doi=10.1111/zygo.12494|last1=Singler|first1=Beth|s2cid=150977852 |url-access=subscription|doi-access=free}}
• An Introduction to Artificial Intelligence and Religion for the Religious Studies Scholar (2018)
• Roko’s Basilisk or Pascal’s? Thinking of Singularity Thought Experiments as Implicit Religion (2018)

Beth Singler lives in Cambridge with her husband and son . An article she wrote for Aeon magazine in 2018 speculated on the benefits of teaching AI to play Dungeons & Dragons.{{Cite news|last=|first=|date=3 April 2018|title=Dungeons and Dragons, Not Chess and Go: Why AI Needs Roleplay|work=Aeon Magazine|url=https://aeon.co/ideas/dungeons-and-dragons-not-chess-and-go-why-ai-needs-roleplay|access-date=}}

{{reflist}}

• [https://bvlsingler.com/ BVLSingler.com]
• [https://www.homerton.cam.ac.uk/node/25507 Homerton college profile]

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Category:Year of birth missing (living people)

Category:Living people

Category:British anthropologists

Category:British women anthropologists

Category:British ethnographers

Category:Fellows of Homerton College, Cambridge

Category:Alumni of the University of Cambridge