About Joanna
Prof. Dr. Dr. (h.c) Joanna J Bryson is an academic recognised for broad expertise on intelligence, its nature, and its consequences. Holding two degrees each in psychology and AI (BA Chicago, MSc & MPhil Edinburgh, PhD MIT), she is since 2020 the Professor of Ethics and Technology at Hertie School, in Berlin, where she was hired as one of the founding professors of their Centre for Digital Governance. Bryson advises governments, corporations, and other agencies globally, particularly on AI policy. Her work has appeared in venues ranging from reddit to the journal Science; she is also active on social media. From 2002-2019 she was Computer Science faculty at the University of Bath where she founded their AI and Machine Learning Group; she has also been affiliated with Harvard Psychology, Oxford Anthropology, The Mannheim Centre for Social Science Research, The Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research, and the Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy. Bryson first observed the confusion generated by anthropomorphised AI during her PhD, leading to her first AI ethics publication “Just Another Artifact” in 1998. She is now a leader in AI ethics, having since coauthored the first national-level AI ethics policy, the UK’s (2011) Principles of Robotics, and contributed to efforts by the OECD, EU, UN, OSCE, Red Cross and Google among others. In June 2020, she was one of nine experts nominated by Germany to the founding cohort of experts for the Global Partnership for AI. Bryson continues to research the systems engineering of AI and the cognitive science of intelligence. Her present focus is on the impacts of communication and computation technology on human societies, and new models of governance for AI and digital technology, particularly given the transnational nature of many of the institutions providing AI infrastructure. With students and collaborators, she is seeking to leverage AI and other technology of the digital age to improve the transparency and legitimacy of governance, governments, and other complex socio-technical systems, including AI companies and products themselves.
(bio as of April 2025, cf. other options below)
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A few other takes on Bryson’s biography →