Benjamin Lipp is visting Score

Benjamin, tell us about your research.
I study how emerging technologies, for example robots, brain-computer interfaces, or AI, change the way healthcare is done and organised. My research challenges the common assumption that human care can simply be replaced by machines, but also the opposite claim that machines cannot meaningfully participate in care at all. Instead, I look at how machines become interfaced with practices and infrastructures of care, and what that does to the work and worth of caring. One of my findings is that this requires caring for technology, too.

I am currently pursuing these questions in the area of hospital logistics. Logistics is a crucial but often overlooked site where care is coordinated and shaped, and it is increasingly pervaded by advanced technology, such as fleets of mobile robots and big data analytics. In a starting grant from the Independent Research Fund Denmark, my team and I examine how logistical expertise, technologies and infrastructures shape the conditions of caring well in Danish hospitals (LOGICARE). We pursue the question of how hospital workers negotiate what counts as “good logistics”.

What are you looking forward to during your stay at Score?
I am looking forward to being inspired by the research being done here at Score, for example through the seminar series, where I will present my work on 1 October. As I am trying to establish a research programme at the intersection of STS and organisational research, I am hoping to benefit from Score's expertise and experience in studying organisations.

I am also co-organising the workshop "Automating for the Public Good?" with Livia Johannesson. We are currently developing our joint work on hospitals in relation to current policy initiatives on preparedness, and with many researchers from Score and beyond in attendance, this will be an excellent venue to test our ideas.