I am an Asisstant Professor in the field of Critical AI Studies and Empirical Ethics. My work is situated at the intersection of STS, Media Studies and Ethics.

I am the co-leader of the Empirical Ethics Research Group at the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Studies and I co-coordinate a new Media Studies MA-track on Cultural Data & AI. I am also running an explorative research project on Digital Transformation in the Amazon Assembalge. Apart from teaching and research, I am serving as a member of the UvA Ethics Committee.

The larger goal and mission of my work is to move AI-Ethics from the PR- to the Engineering- and Development-Level. To reach this goal, I am collaborating with partners from Computer Science as well as NGOs and Cultural Associations, combining critical co-creation approaches with empirical ethics, while maintaining a reflective STS-lens. I hold a doctorate of philosophy/cultural studies (summa cum laude).

Before coming to Amsterdam, I was a research associate at the MCTS at Technical University Munich and the International Center for Ethics in Science at Tübingen University, where I was co-leading several national and EU-projects concerned with the creation and ethical advancement of AI-Systems in various domains. I completed my PhD while I was working as a research associate at the University of Frankfurt in an interdisciplinary research project dealing with the “Structural Transformations of Privacy”. I was also a visiting fellow at the Institute for Information Systems Design in Kassel, the Center for Surveillance Studies at Queen’s University (invited by David Lyon) and at New York University, where I was a member of  the Privacy Research Group (invited by Helen Nissenbaum).

In 2022 I was honored to be awarded the recognition of being on the list of 100 Most Brilliant Women in AI-Ethics.

I am also a mother of two amazing children.

Peer-reviewed Articles, Chapters and Conference Proceedings

Paula Helm, Gabor Bella, Gertraud Koch, and Fausto Giunchiglia (2024): Language Technology and Diversity. How Language Modelling Bias Causes Epistemic Injustice. Ethics Inf Technol 26, 8, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-023-09742-6

Paula Helm, Martina Klausner, Marion Lather (2024): Digital Ethnography and Critical Data Studies. A fruitful encounter, in: Buchanan, E./Whiteman, N.: Bloomsbury Handbook for Online Research, forthcoming.

Gábor Bella, Paula Helm, Gertraud Koch, and Fausto Giunchiglia (2023): Towards Bridging the Digital Language Divide. arXiv preprint, DOI:10.48550/arXiv.2307.13405

• featured in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/07/asylum-seekers-ai-translation-apps

Paula Helm, Amalia De Götzen, Luca Cernuzzi, Salvador Ruiz Correa, Shyam Diwakar, Daniel Gatica-Perez (2023). Diversity and Neocolonialism in Big Data Research. Big Data & Society, DOI:10.1177/205395172312068

Paula Helm, Tobias Matzner (2023). Co-addictive human–machine configurations: Relating critical design and algorithm studies to medical-psychiatric research on “problematic Internet use”. New Media & Society, https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231165916

Paula Helm, Loizis Michael, Laura Schelenz (2022): Diversity by Design? Balancing the Protection and Inclusion of Users in Online Social Networks, in: Proceedings of the 2022 AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society (AIES'22), August 1--3, 2022, Oxford, United Kingdom, https://doi.org/10.1145/3514094.3534149.

Max Fischer, Simon Hirsbrunner ... Daniel Kaim, Paula Helm (2022): Promoting Ethical Awareness in Communication Analysis: Investigating Potentials and Limits of Visual Analytics, Proceedings of the 2022 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability and Transparency (FAccT'22), June 20--22, 2022, Seoul, North Korea, https://doi.org/10.1145/3531146.3533151

Paula Helm, Thilo Hagendorff (2021): Beyond the Prediction Paradigm. Chances and Risks of responsible AI in the fight against Organized Crime, in (Luciano Floridi, Jeff Ward, Cynthia Rudin, eds.): Artificial Intelligence and the Rule of Law. 84 Duke Law and Contemporary Problems. Duke University Press, 1-17. https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/lcp/vol84/iss3/2

Paula Helm (2020): Longing for a Selfless Self and other Ambivalences of Anonymity, in: Anon Collective (ed.): Book of Anonymity. Earth/Milky Way: Punctum Books: 2020, 401-423.

Paula Helm (2020): Anonymer Tanz als dekolonialisierende Praxis, in: Koch, Gertraud/Moser, Johannes/Hansen, Lara (Ed.): Welt, Wissen, Design. Hamburger Journal für Kulturanthropologie. Hamburg University Press: 2020, 168-185 [Anonymous Dance as decolonizing practice].

Katharina Bräunlich, Tobias Dienlin, Johannes Eichenhofer, Paula Helm (2020): Linking Loose Ends. An Interdisciplinary Privacy and Communication Model, in: New Media & Society, 22(9): 1-22. Linking Loose Ends. An Interdisciplinary Privacy and Communication Model, in: New Media & Society, 2020, 22(9): 1-22.https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444820905045

Paula Helm, Sandra Seubert (2020): Normative Paradoxes of Privacy. Literacy and Choice in Platform Societies, in: Surveillance & Society, 2020, 18(2): 185-198. https://doi.org/10.24908/ss.v18i2.13356

Paula Helm (2019): Sobriety versus Abstinence. How 12-Stepper Negotiate Recovery Across Groups, in: Addiction Research & Theory, 2019, 27(1): 29-36. https://doi.org/10.1080/16066359.2018.1530348

Paula Helm (2019): Myth #45: Privacy is dead [with Katharina Bräunlich, Tobias Dienlin, Johannes Eichenhofer], in: Busted! The Truth About The 50 Most Common Internet Myths, in: Matthias Kettemann, Stephan Dreyer (ed.). Berlin: Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology/Leibniz Institute for Media Research/Hans-Bredow-Institute, 2019, 202-206 [translated in 8 Languages].

Paula Helm, Johannes Eichenhofer (2019): Reflexionen zu einem social turn in den privacy studies. Sozialwissenschaftliche-rechtliche Perspektiven, in: Henning, M. et al. (Hg.): Digitalität und Privatheit. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2019, 139-165 [Reflexion on a social turn in privacy studies, in Digitality and Privacy].

Paula Helm (2018): Treating Sensitive Topics Online. A Privacy Dilemma, Ethics & Information Technology, 2018, 20(4): 303-313. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-018-9482-4 --> shortlisted for Surveilance Studies Price

Paula Helm (2017): What can Self-Organized Addiction Therapy Groups teach us about Anonymity? In: Ephemera. Theory & Politics in Organization. 2017, 17(2): 327-350. https://ephemerajournal.org/sites/default/files/2022-01/17-2helm.pdf

Paula Helm (2017): Group privacy in Times of Big Data, in: Digital Culture & Society. 16(2): 137-152.  https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/1026.

Paula Helm (2017): Privatheit und Demokratie [with Sandra Seubert], in: Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewegungen. 17(2): 120-124, [Privacy and Democracy].

Paula Helm (2017): Transparenz und Anonymität: Potentiale, Irrtümer, Grenzen, in: Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewegungen. 17(2): 142-152, [Transparency and Anonymity: Potentials, Fallacies, Limits].

Paula Helm (2016): Addiction as Emotional Illness: The Testimonies of Anonymous Recovery Groups, in: Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly. 2016, 236(1): 79-91. https://doi.org/10.1080/07347324.2016.1114314

Full-length books

• Suchtkultur und Gruppentherapie. Vom anonymen Ich zum anonymen Wir (2017), Wiesbaden: Springer VS, Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, [Anonymity and Autonomy. An ethnography of addiction therapy].

Edited volumes and special issues

• Herausgabe des Studentischen Sonderheftes: Leben im Netz (2020). Kuckuck. Notizen zur Alltagskultur.
• Die Ratsfrau (2018). Zeitschrift des Gleichstellungsrats. Fachbereich Gesellschaftswissenschaften, Vol. 21.
• Sonderheft: Privatheit und Demokratie (2017). Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewegungen, Vol. 30/2 [ed. with Sandra Seubert].
• Räume und Kulturen des Privaten (2016). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften [ed. with Eva Beyvers, Martin Hennig], [Spaces and Cultures of Privacy].

Media apprearances

My work has been featured at The Guardian, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Reuter Momentum, Deutschlandfunk and Deutschlandradio Kultur (Radio), I was interviewed for the ZDF Documentary "Darknet", as well as on print at Welt am Sonntag and FAZ.