I am Professor of Digital Humanities at the University of Sussex. My current work develops what I call vector theory, an account of how artificial intelligence, organised around learned high-dimensional geometries (the manifold), is reshaping the production of knowledge, the conditions of culture, and the political economy of computation. I work across the philosophy of technology, critical theory, critical code studies, and the digital humanities, with a particular interest in how the theories and methods developed for older media now need to be rethought.

Within this programme I am particularly interested in how computation is being incorporated into arts, humanities, and social-science practice, and in how artificial intelligence reshapes knowledges through the categories of augmenting, automating, and informating. I examine how computational systems are legitimated, the orders of justification that surround them, and the potential of concepts such as explainability for sustaining immanent critique and the space for practices of critical reason.

My work is also interested in historical notions of artificial intelligence and machine learning, particularly viewed from the prism of ELIZA, the chatbot program written by Joseph Weizenbaum. I am part of an international research team that has rediscovered the MAD/SLIP source-code for this chatbot, which had been lost for over fifty years. The reaction of users to the original system, who believed that the computer was intelligent, greatly concerned Weizenbaum (later called the “ELIZA effect” by Hofstadter and Turkle) and which he later discussed in his book Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation in 1976. The importance and timeliness of this research is highlighted by the rapid deployment of AI systems and the public concern with bias, transparency, responsibility and trust in relation to newer AI systems today. The project is published as Inventing Eliza (MIT Press, 2026), see https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262052481/inventing-eliza/ 

I am the author of a forthcoming sequence of books on this work, including Artificial Intelligence and Critical Theory (Manchester University Press, 2026) and Vector Theory (in preparation), and I lead the Vector Lab research tools. 

I also work on the historical and philosophical genealogies of the notion of an "Idea of a University" which examines the way in which the university is now increasingly organised according to instrumental logics, mostly drawn from corporate structures, and which not only undermine the idea of a university, but begins to transform it into its opposite. That is, that in the absence of a positive conception of the university, it lapses into an R&D division for industry or into offering high school teaching as part of a mass education system. My work seeks, rather, to provide a new compass for the university and contribute towards a critical archaeology of the concepts which were fundamental in thinking about the university and reinvigorate their importance for teaching and learning, and for research as a parrhesiastic practice. 

I moved to the University of Sussex in 2013 to help accelerate Sussex's move into the digital humanities, co-founded the Sussex Humanities Lab, a £3 million strategic programme in digital humanities, and managed the physical build of its lab space. In 2016 I became Sussex's first Professor in Digital Humanities. I was awarded a Mid-Career Fellowship from the British Academy (2017–18), and I am an Affiliated Researcher at the University of Southern California (2010–). I was Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan (2022) and Visiting Professor of Critical Theory and Digital Humanities at King's College London (2021). In 2026 I was Otto Mønsted Visiting Professor of Artificial Intelligence at Copenhagen Business School (January to April 2026). I have held earlier fellowships at Cambridge (CRASSH, Wolfson), Oxford (Mansfield, Lincoln), Frankfurt (Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften), the School of Advanced Study (London), and Oslo (IMK).

I have examined PhDs from a number of universities, including: Cambridge, Durham, Glasgow, Goldsmiths, Royal Holloway, Kings College London (KCL), Leiden (NL), Liverpool, TU Dublin, and Warwick.

Current research

• Vector theory and the vectorial turn in computation
• Critical theory of artificial intelligence
• Political economy of vectors
• The manifold, vector medium, and vector constitution
• Critical Code Studies and Critical Digital Humanities
• Explainability, interpretability, and critical reason
• The history and philosophy of the university
• Digital Humanism

Selected research awards, fellowships, & prizes

2026 Otto Mønsted Visiting Professor of Artificial Intelligence, Department of Organization, Copenhagen Business School, Jan 2026 - Apr 2026

2025 Sussex Awards Shortlisted for "Postgraduate Researcher Support" Award, Sussex Education Awards 2025, University of Sussex.

2024 Winner of “Teaching to Disrupt” Education Award for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, Sussex Education Awards , University of Sussex. I was also a nominee in the “World Readiness” category.

2023 Finding ELIZA: A media archaeology of the first computer chatbot, Borchard Foundation ($35,000). 

2022 Visiting Professor of Philosophy, Dept. of Philosophy, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Italy.

2021 King's College London (KCL), Visiting Professor of Critical Theory and Digital Humanities, Department of Digital Humanities.

2019 Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften (Institute for Advanced Studies), Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Visiting Fellowship, Fellow am Forschungsverbund „Die Herausbildung normativer Ordnungen“, 2019-20.

2019 ISTeC Distinguished Lecturer, Colorado State University (CSU), “History of the Concept of a University”, Information Science and Technology Center (ISTeC) and the Digital Hub at Colorado State University, March 2019.

2019 Winner of “Sussex Spirit” Education Award 2019 for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, University of Sussex. I was also a nominee in the “Transformative Technology” category.

2018 University of Oxford, Associate Member, Faculty of History, 2017-18

2018 Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, Visiting Fellow.

2018 University of Cambridge, Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), Visiting Fellow, Easter Term, University of Cambridge.

2017 University of Warwick, Visiting Academic, Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies (CIM).

2017 Lincoln College, University of Oxford, Visiting Scholar and Member of the Senior Common Room.

2017 British Academy Mid-Career Fellow, The British Academy.

2017 School of Advanced Study, University of London, Visiting Fellowship 2017-18.

2016 Mansfield College, University of Oxford, Visiting Fellowship.

2014-17 Sussex Humanities Lab, Sussex Research Competition (£3 million), Co-Founder and Co-Director of University Research Centre (with Caroline Bassett, Tim Hitchcock, Sally Jane Norman, and Rachel Thomson). University of Sussex.

2013 Digital Humanities at Sussex, Sussex Research Networking Fund (£1400), David Berry (PI), with Caroline Bassett (Co-I), University of Sussex.

2012 University of Oslo, Yggdrasil Visiting Fellow, Digital Humanities and Software Studies, Research Council of Norway/Norges forskningsråd (104000 Kr/ £12,000), Yggdrasil fellowship - IS-MOBIL 2011-12: Digital Media: Software/Code and Social Media (PI).

2010 Media and Conflict, Norwegian MFA Grant (£105,000), Principal Investigator with Dr S. J. Hansen (PI).

Professional memberships

- Member of the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT)
- Member of Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO)
- Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA)
- International Communication Association (ICA)
- The Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association (MeCCSA)
- European Communication Research and Education Organization (ECREA)
- The British Philosophical Association (BPA)
- Performing Rights Society (PRS)

PhD Supervision

I supervise PhD students in the areas of vector theory, critical theory, digital humanities, software studies, digital media, philosophy/history of the university, philosophy of technology, and media theory. Please contact me if you are interested in studying a PhD in these topics.