
Full Name
Benjamin Lipp
Job title
Assistant Professor in Science and Technology Studies
Company
DTU
Speaker Bio
Benjamin Lipp is Assistant Professor in Science and Technology Studies at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). He studies how emerging technologies such as robots, brain-computer interfaces, and smart logistics change the ways we care for ourselves and others. From a sociological perspective, he challenges two common assumptions: that human care can simply be replaced by machines, and that machines cannot meaningfully participate in care itself. Instead, he examines how machines already participate in practices and infrastructures of care and what consequences this has for the work and worth of caring well. Across his research, Benjamin is especially interested in the often-unacknowledged work needed to make care with technology possible in the first place: for example, maintaining robots that repeatedly break down or learning how to live with an implanted neuro-stimulator. Examining this kind of work helps us understand that humans and machines are never completely separate, but are already intimately connected. At the same time, it shows that technology is not neutral: it reorders care arrangements according to new values and imperatives that change how we practise, think about, and organise care. Benjamin currently leads a Sapere Aude project funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark, in which he studies how robotics changes the logistics of Danish hospitals. Before joining DTU, he was a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell University and the University of Hamburg.
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