Nina BeguS
Hello!
My name is Nina Beguš and I'm a researcher and lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley. I'm affiliated with the Center for Science, Technology, Medicine & Society (CSTMS) and Berkeley Institute of Data Science (BIDS).
I lead the Artificial Humanities Group where we focus on the intersection of humanities and AI across three research areas: cultural imaginary and social bias, narratology and writing creativity, and philosophy of science and technology.
Books
My first book, titled Artificial Humanities: A Fictional Perspective on Language in AI, is coming out in 2025 with the University of Michigan Press. 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.
My second 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.
I am serving as the editor of a volume featuring essays by professional writers and scholars on how the entry of AI into this space has changed the space of writing. I am also serving as the editor of a volume of academic papers on post-truth, a result of recent symposia held at UC Berkeley.
Consulting and Collaborations
I am the founder of InterpretAI, a consulting and product development company with a focus on understanding and interpretability of AI.
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. My research focus is on LLMs in regards to writing and creativity.
As a Senior Researcher at Transformations of the Human (ToftH and the Berggruen Institute), I helped to implement a novel method of process-based consulting for startups (CSM) and big tech companies (Google, Meta, Microsoft). The ToftH School was established to train students in this type of collaborative concept work, as well as a venue for technologists to reconsider their work within the humanities framework.
Since 2020, I have collaborated with Brodie's group at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Our work is centered around a planetary perspective on information transfer, grounded in thermodynamics via the Earth system science approach.
I have recently 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.
Research and Summer Programs
My comparative literature dissertation from Harvard University, titled Artificial Humanities: A Literary Perspective on Creating and Enhancing Humans from Pygmalion to Cyborgs, explores how literary works inform us about current and emerging ethical and philosophical issues posed by new technologies, particularly artificial intelligence and biomedical engineering.
I also write on Central European and Balkan (post)modernism (narratology, the Habsburg myth) and the ancient Silk Road (the Jataka tales).
My work with these projects ranges from co-organizing and teaching summer programs on islands, boundaries, and conflict (Harvard, in Croatia) and AI, language, and ethics (University of Washington, in Slovenia), to conducting computational experiments with large language models and behavioral experiments on the MTurk platform through the Harvard Mind, Brain and Behavior Initiative (you can hear more about it in this interview or read the paper or preprint). The paper was included in syllabi on AI and writing (Stanford U, U of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) and served as inspiration for pedagogy on AI (U of Louisiana, Lafayette).
Press Coverage
2024:
- commented on AI and poetry in Haaretz (Hebrew)
- my speech on LLMs and smaller languages in Outsider (Slovenian)
- paper Experimental Narratives in The Financial Times, The Independent, Berkeley News, Tech Xplore, Incredibble, NPR, KCBS, and KNX Radio, MBR video (English), Haaretz (Hebrew), The Independent Turkçe (Turkish), LaSexta (Spanish), LeBigData (French), Scientias (Dutch), CNN Brasil (Portuguese), ICT Global (Hungarian), 续航教育/Forward Pathway (Chinese/English)
- children's newspaper Časoris (Slovenian)
- interview for the newspaper Delo, also featured in the newspaper Dnevnik (Slovenian)
- interview for Outsider magazine (Slovenian)
- book Artificial Humanities featured in Scientific American (English)
- the New Books Network podcast by Latent Knowledge (English)
- interview for El NorMal magazine (Slovenian)
- podcast interview on Embeddings (English)
2023:
- 96 Layers podcast, also in text (English)
- book Artificial Humanities featured in Scientific American (featured by a few other outlets in English and Slovenian)
- featured in a Korean documentary on AI (part 1 and 2) (English/Korean)
2022:
- interview on the book Artificial Humanities for the Napkin Poetry Review (English). Responses can be found on art.culture.digital (English) and Gledališče Glej (Slovenian)
- interview for the American Chamber of Commerce in Slovenia (English)
2021:
- interview for the research podcast, Metina Lista (Slovenian)
- and national radio station, Val 202 (Slovenian)
Residential Life
I've been involved in college residential life since 2013, initially as a Graduate Commons community advisor and a resident tutor in Mather House. I currently live in Bowles Hall, the oldest residential college in the U.S. (est. 1928).
Connect
I update this site regularly and would be happy to connect via email or social media.
Feel free to contact me through ASEF or Društvo VTIS, where I serve as a mentor for Slovenians educated abroad. If you would like to join our research group, please email me directly.