What is the sociology of AI?
AI is not just a technical system. It is also a field of professions, risks, rituals, organisations, publics, and stories about the future.
Sociology of AI / Responsible AI
Canhui Liu 刘灿辉
I study the social life of AI: how ideas of safety, intelligence, public value, and machine society become institutions, cultures, and everyday practices.
I am a Lecturer (Teaching) in Responsible AI at UCL Computer Science and a Research Fellow in AI Policy at the UCL Centre for Artificial Intelligence.
Outside research, I like looking at paintings, especially Georges Seurat, growing flowers, and learning practical crafts. I am currently studying at Le Cordon Bleu and at a house maintenance school.
If AI replaces my profession, what will I do?
I will become a chef.
Research
Questions I Keep Returning To
Whose safety counts?
I study how AI safety agendas are made, whose harms become visible, and how social science can widen the field's public imagination.
Can machines become social?
My recent work uses machine collectives to ask what human societies do with death, time, trust, succession, and memory.
Writing
Selected Writing
The Sociology of AI as an Emerging Field: Mapping Tensions and Boundaries
A field-building paper on the concepts, tensions, and boundaries shaping sociology of AI.
DOITime Without Death: Finitude, Social Order, and What Machines Lack
A theoretical essay on machine collectives, social order, and why finitude matters for human societies.
ReadCybernetics, AI and Modernisation in Contemporary China
My Cambridge thesis on cybernetics, technical expertise, bureaucratic authority, and Chinese modernisation.
RepositoryThe Public Value in AI Safety Research
A study of how AI safety research organises public value, legitimacy, and accountability.
Meet the Researcher: Canhui Liu
A short profile introducing my work on responsible AI, sociology of AI, and the social questions raised by generative models.
ReadFrom Human Networks to Human-Machine Networks: How AI is Reshaping Social Structures
A public essay for the Institute for the Future of Work on AI as a structural force in work, social networks, inequality, and human-machine relations.
ReadProjects
Current Work
Whose Safety?
A project on the social life of AI safety: whose harms, values, futures, and institutions become central when safety is defined.
Related analysisReligions of AI
A comparative project on belief, salvation, apocalypse, ethics, and machine personhood in AI cultures.
AI Literacy and Capacity Building
Educational frameworks and assessment materials for policymakers, educators, and industry professionals.
Vibe Coding
Current Prototypes
Research dashboard
AI Risk Topic Analysis
Five-platform comparison of AI risk discourse across EA Forum, LessWrong, Open Philanthropy, Reddit, and OpenAlex academic literature.
Interactive ecosystem map
AI Semiconductor Ecosystem Network
A chip-style supply-chain explorer for AI accelerators, HBM, advanced packaging, equipment, materials, cloud demand, founder origins, investment networks, and localisation paths.
Contact
Say Hello
I am happy to hear from researchers, students, policy teams, and people thinking about AI as a social question.