David Beer

Professor David Beer is professor of sociology at University of York, UK. He is a world-leading authority on how technological transformations reshape and reconfigure culture and society. Most recently, his many published works have focused on the politics of data and metrics, the social power of algorithms, the tensions of AI, and the dynamics of digital popular cultures and social media. Among his many books, The Tensions of Algorithmic Thinking: Automation, Intelligence and the Politics of Knowing (Bristol University Press, 2023) examines algorithmic thought and knowledge as social and political forces that are reshaping our world in distinctive ways. His book, Social Media and the Automatic Production of Memory (co-authored with Ben Jacobsen), addresses the specific forms of sorting and classification in social media algorithms.  David will lead the University of York collaboration in the Leverhulme Centre for Algorithmic Life, convening the research cluster on Data.