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Daria Savchenko

Grant Type

Dissertation Fieldwork Grant

Institutional Affiliation

Harvard U.

Grant number

Gr. 10151

Approve Date

April 8, 2021

Project Title

Savchenko , Daria (Harvard U.) "The AI—robot apparatus in China: technoscientific practice and the construction of human selfhood"

DARIA SAVCHENKO, then a graduate student at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, was awarded funding in April 2021 to aid research on “The AI-robot Apparatus in China: Technoscientific Practice and the Construction of Human Selfhood,” supervised by Dr. Susan Greenhalgh. This research is driven by concerns and anxieties about AI and robots the world over: What is AI and what are the abilities and capacities of robots, how will they influence society, and how will humans change as a result of the increased use of AI and robots? The study focuses on how the use of robots/AI in China brings up moral dilemmas about changing social roles, life trajectories and expectations of the future. Through building a multimedia archive, interviews, and observation of online space, this part of research looked at how people renegotiate their own identities in the context of changing economy, aging population, and pressure to produce high-quality population.