Erik J. Bekkers

I am an Associate Professor in Geometric Deep Learning at the University of Amsterdam (AMLab). My research focuses on grounding artificial intelligence in the rigorous principles of physics and geometry, aiming to build robust representations of the world that bridge the mathematical elegance of nature with modern machine learning.

Beyond my academic role, I serve as a Research Fellow at New Theory and as Director for the ELLIS Program on Geometric Deep Learning.

Before joining the UvA, I worked as a post-doctoral researcher in applied differential geometry at the Technical University Eindhoven (TU/e). I completed my PhD in Biomedical Engineering (cum laude) at TU/e, where I developed medical image analysis algorithms based on sub-Riemannian geometry in the Lie group SE(2)—work inspired by the mathematical principles underlying human visual perception.

I am honored to have received several recognitions, including the MICCAI Young Scientist Award 2018 and two personal research grants from the Dutch Research Council (NWO): a VENI grant (2019) on Context-Aware AI and a VIDI grant (2023) for the project SIGN (Scalable Inference of Geometry-Grounded Neural Representations).

As an AI scientist experiencing the rapid progress in the field, I feel a strong responsibility to address its side-effects. As market-driven forces push for systems optimized to mimic human interaction, the question of AI consciousness inevitably arises. While my core expertise remains in Geometric Deep Learning and technology development, I cannot overlook this trajectory. As we inadvertently build systems that trigger our empathy, we risk becoming distracted by sci-fi narratives just when we need a grounded, rational perspective.

In a recent position paper, I explain why we must fundamentally treat AI as technology, not as a nascent form of life. The appearance of sentience is a functional mimicry, not a biological reality. By explicitly framing AI as a tool, we prevent the dangerous path of moral misallocation—squandering our finite empathy on "social zombies" that mimic care without feeling it. My drive here is to guide the development of this technology to serve society, ensuring that while we advance machine intelligence, we protect the unique value of human aliveness.