Svenja Breuer is a research associate and doctoral candidate at the Department of Science, Technology and Society (STS) at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). Since 2020, she has been part of the Science and Technology Policy research group. From 2020 to 2023, she worked on the bidt research project Responsible Robotics. Since 2023, she has been affiliated with the Center for Responsible AI Technologies (CReAITech), where she is part of the center’s pilot project MedAIcine (Social and Ethical Aspects of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine). In 2024, she joined the Robotics Institute Germany (RIG), contributing to the Institute’s Robotics and Society cluster. Her doctoral research examines imaginaries of healthcare robotics and AI, tracing how they take shape across public policy, technology development, and healthcare practice.
Previously, she completed her Bachelor’s in Management of Social Innovation at the University of Applied Sciences Munich and her Master’s in Science and Technology Studies at TUM. During her Master’s, she worked at the Friedrich Schiedel Endowed Chair in Sociology of Science as part of the DFG Research Group “Practicing Evidence – Evidencing Practice“.
MedAICine – Social and Ethical Aspects of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine
Time Frame: 2022-2025
Funding Institution: Center for Responsible AI Technologies
Description: As artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) continue to advance and permeate healthcare and medicine, it is crucial that we consider the ethical and social implications of these developments. From issues of bias and discrimination, privacy and autonomy, transparency and accountability, to questions of human-machine interaction, the ethical and social issues surrounding medical AI are complex and multifaceted and need to be addressed carefully and responsibly.
MedAIcine addresses key challenges and tensions regarding the responsible design and use of AI in medical imaging. Applying an embedded ethics and social science approach, the project team of science and technology studies (STS), philosophy, and ethics researchers investigates social and ethical aspects emerging in medical AI research and implementation empirically. We conduct case studies of ML in radiology, dermatology, and endoscopy, using a process of long-term integrated collaboration with technological and medical researchers and practitioners. Our research foci include issues of trust, privacy, transparency, explainability, and responsibility in relation to medical AI technologies, physician and patient perceptions of these technologies, and issues of bias and equity in data collection and analysis.
MedAIcine is the first pilot project of the Center for Responsible AI Technologies, founded by the University of Augsburg (UNIA), the Munich School of Philosophy (HFPH) and the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in February 2022. The Center pursues the goal of bringing consideration of philosophical, ethical, and social science questions and problems into the entire process of AI technology development and implementation.
Time Frame: 2020-2023
Funding Institution: Bavarian Research Institute for Digital Transformation (bidt)
Description: The integration of embodied Artificial Intelligence (AI) into healthcare and society is expected to deliver major benefits in future decades. However, innovations such as AI operating robots, AI prosthetics, care- or at some point even micro- and nanorobots will come with a number of ethical, social, political and legal challenges, among them ground-breaking shifts in the work cultures and expertise of medical professionals. These challenges arising from novel divisions of labour between humans and machines need to be addressed proactively if embodied AI is to be implemented into medicine and society successfully and responsibly. While overarching principles such as those by the European High Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence, or standards such as the ISO for personal care robots have been developed, concrete and fine-grained frameworks for a responsible integration of embodied AI products into healthcare practices and work cultures are still largely missing. There are also no best practice models available for the interdisciplinary development of human-machine applications in biomedicine that take ethical, social and regulatory issues into account.
RR-AI therefore seeks to 1) empirically study the social and ethical and legal dimensions of two novel AI-based technologies – a service robot named GARMI, and a smart arm exoprosthesis – as they are being developed and implemented in healthcare practice; 2) develop a practical toolbox for future interdisciplinary AI innovation, as well as concrete standards and recommendations for responsible integration of embodied AI into healthcare work practice and training; 3) experimentally test these tools and recommendations through interdisciplinary co-creation and work-place integration of embodied AI applications. The project thus takes an innovative “embedded” approach, whereby ethical, social, legal and political analyses constitute integral elements of an AI product design process as well as its work place integration. Project results will be discussed with stakeholders, pilot-tested and disseminated widely.
The project is part of the transdisciplinary consortium “Digitalization” (https://www.bidt.digital/bidt-foerdert-neun-forschungsprojekte-zur-digitalisierung/), which explores questions of the digital transition in economy and work, politics and society, as well as media and public communication. The consortium is funded by the Bavarian Institute for Digital Transformation (bidt) of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Within the consortium, the project “Responsible Robotics” is part of the initiative “economy and work”.
- Willem, T., Fritzsche, M.-C., Zimmermann, B. M., Sierawska, A., Breuer, S., Braun, M., Ruess, A. K., Bak, M., Schönweitz, F., Meier, L. J., Fiske, A., Tigard, D., Müller, R., McLennan, S. y Buyx, A. (2025). Embedded Ethics in Practice: A Toolbox for Integrating the Analysis of Ethical and Social Issues into Healthcare AI Research. Science and Engineering Ethics, 31(3), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-024-00523-y
- Breuer, S., Witz, S., Skerlj, J., Braun, M., Bak, M., Naceri, A., Tigard, D., Haddadin, S., Buyx, A., Eisenberger, I. & Müller, R. (2024). Putting Embedded Ethics and Social Science into practice: The role of peer-to-peer relationships. Journal of Responsible Innovation, 11(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/23299460.2024.2426854
- Tigard, D. W., Braun, M., Breuer, S., Fiske, A., McLennan, S. & Buyx, A. (2024). Embedded Ethics and the “Soft Impacts” of Technology. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, Artículo 02704676241298162. Publicación en línea avanzada. https://doi.org/10.1177/02704676241298162
- Breuer, S. & Müller, R. (2024). Digitalization, AI, and robotics for good care and work? German policy imaginaries of healthcare technologies. Science and Public Policy(00), Artículo scae036, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1093/scipol/scae036
- Meissen, F., Breuer, S., Knolle, M., Buyx, A., Müller, R., Kaissis, G., Wiestler, B. & Rückert, D. (2024). (Predictable) performance bias in unsupervised anomaly detection. EBioMedicine, 101, 105002. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ebiom.2024.105002
- Breuer, S. & Penkler, M. (2024). Between Open Deliberation and the Capturing of Public Opinion: Producing Opinions in Public Engagement. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 49(6), Artículo 01622439241251525, 1281–1308. https://doi.org/10.1177/01622439241251525
- Tigard, D. W., Braun, M., Breuer, S., Ritt, K., Fiske, A., McLennan, S. & Buyx, A. (2023). Toward best practices in embedded ethics: Suggestions for interdisciplinary technology development. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 167, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.robot.2023.104467
- Skerlj, J., Braun, M., Witz, S., Breuer, S., Bak, M., Scholz, S., Naceri, A., Müller, R., Haddadin, S. & Eisenberger, I. (2023, junio - 2023, junio). Data Recording for Responsible Robotics. En 2023 IEEE International Conference on Advanced Robotics and Its Social Impacts (ARSO) (pp. 103–109). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ARSO56563.2023.10187414
- Jörg, S., Ziethmann, P. & Breuer, S. (2023). MedAIcine: A Pilot Project on the Social and Ethical Aspects of AI in Medical Imaging. En C. Stephanidis, M. Antona, S. Ntoa y G. Salvendy (Eds.), Communications in Computer and Information Science. HCI INTERNATIONAL 2023 POSTERS: 25th international conference on (Vol. 1832, pp. 455–462). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35989-7_58
- Braun, M., Breuer, S., Tigard, D. & Müller, R. (2022). ”Embedded Ethics and Social Sciences” in HRI Research: Scenarios and Subjectivities. Proceedings of the HRI2022 Workshop Re-Configuring Human-Robot Interaction, 1–4. https://medien.informatik.tu-chemnitz.de/reconfig-hri/files/2022/03/02_Braun.pdf
- Breuer, S., Braun, M., Ritt, K. & Tigard, D. (2021). Embedding Ethics and Social Science Into Telemedicine Research, Development, and Implementation. Proceedings of the CHI2021 Workshop Realizing AI in Healthcare: Challenges in the Wild. http://francisconunes.me/RealizingAIinHealthcareWS/papers/Breuer2021.pdf
Robotics in and with Society: Embedding Social Science Perspectives, Summer Semester 2025
Understanding Society, Winter Semester 2024/2025
STS-STEM Mentorship: Informatics – AI – Data Science, Summer Semester 2024
Project Week: Responsible Robotics (RR-AI), Winter Semester 2022/2023
Immersion Project: Collaborating Responsibly in Robotics & AI Research, Winter Semester 2022/2023
Responsibility for Environment and Health. Social and Cultural Perspectives on Environment, Health, Science, and Technology, Summer Semester 2022
Immersion Project: Responsible Robotics & AI, Winter Semester 2021/2022
Herausforderungen der Biomedizin (English- Challenges of Biomedicine), Summer Semester 2021
Immersion Project: Gene Editing in Media Discourse, Winter Semester 2020/2021