51cg

People

Dr Paula Sweeney

Dr Paula Sweeney
Dr Paula Sweeney
Dr Paula Sweeney

Senior Lecturer

Accepting PhDs

51cg
Email Address
p.sweeney@abdn.ac.uk
Telephone Number
+44 (0)1224 272357
Office Address
50/52 College Bounds
Old Aberdeen Campus
College Bounds
AB24 3DS

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School/Department
School of Divinity, History, Philosophy & Art History

Biography

I work on digital persons, especially how artificial agents acquire individuality, irreplaceable value and social standing through their relationships with humans and with one another.

I joined the 51cg in 2009. Prior to that I completed my PhD at the University of St Andrews under the supervision of Crispin Wright. 

I was the Head of the School of Divinity, History, Philosophy and Art History from 2017-2022.

Qualifications

  • PhD Philosophy 
    2010 - University of St Andrews 

    Supervisor: Crispin Wright

  • MLitt Philosophy 
    2006 - University of St Andrews 
  • MA Philosophy 
    2005 - University of St Andrews 

External Memberships

In recent years I have been a member of the AHRC Peer Review College, an elected board member of the British Philosophical Association and an appointed trustee of the trust associated with Thought: A Journal of Philosophy. 

I have served as external examiner at Lancaster University and the University of St Andrews.

Latest Publications

  • Trusting Conversational Artificial Intelligence in Mental Healthcare Provision: A Fictional Dualism Model

    Sweeney, P.
    American Journal of Bioethics, vol. 26, no. 5, pp. 101-103
    Contributions to Journals: Comments and Debates
    • [ONLINE] DOI:
    • [OPEN ACCESS]

  • Personal Avatars and Personal Autonomy

    Sweeney, P.
    Reconfiguring Human Autonomy: Conceptual Challenges and Ethical Implications in the Age of AI. 1st edition. Springer Nature, pp. 109-120, 12 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters (Peer-Reviewed)
    • [ONLINE] DOI:

  • The Ethics of AI Avatars: Moral Questions in the Age of Digital Duplicates of Real People

    Sweeney, P., Nyholm, S.
    Routledge
    Books and Reports: Books

  • Beyond Deepfakes: 'Digital duplicates' or AI Simulations of Real People-An International Ethical Consensus

    Hurshman, C., Voinea, C., D'Allessandro, W., Constantinescu, M., Feroz, F., Hongladarom, S., Jurcys, P., Kozlovski, A., Lange, B., Liu, P., Menikoff, J., Syholm, S., Puzio, A., Sweeney, P., Sharma, B. G., Schwitzgebel, E., Vica, C., Weissglass, D. E., Zahiu, A., Savulescu, J., Sinnott-Armstrong, W., Mann, S. P., Earp, B. D.
    Working Papers: Preprint Papers
    • [ONLINE] DOI:

  • The Role of Avatars in Non-death Related Grief

    Sweeney, P.
    Philosophy & Technology, vol. 38, no. 3, 89
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
    • [ONLINE] DOI:
    • [OPEN ACCESS]

View My Publications

Prizes and Awards

I was co-investigator on the Leverhulme Trust funded project, Relativism and Rational Tolerance, with Professor Crispin Wright. 

Research

Research Overview

I am an analytic philosopher who is interested in the Philosophy of AI, particularly the philosophy of social robots and AI avatars. Some of the questions that interest me are ethical but I am also interested in the traditional questions of philosophy, reconsidered in light of social AI technologies. 

Research Areas

Accepting PhDs

I am currently accepting PhDs in Philosophy, Artificial Intelligence.

Please get in touch if you would like to discuss your research ideas further.

Philosophy

  • Supervising
  • Accepting PhDs
View Research Area

Artificial Intelligence

  • Supervising
  • Accepting PhDs
View Research Area

Research Specialisms

  • Philosophy
  • Artificial Intelligence

Our research specialisms are based on the Higher Education Classification of Subjects (HECoS) which is , published under the licence.

Current Research

Most recently I have been working on AI Avatars--particularly avatars that seek to represent or 'duplicate' real-life individuals. I have a number of publications in this area, some exploring use cases and others exploring more abstract philosophical questions such as the impact of personal avatars on the value of personhood and uniqueness. 

My research on avatars builds on my work on social robots. My monograph, Social Robots: A Fictional Dualism modal was published by Rowman & Littlefield in 2023. The monograph is a book-length study of my theory of social robots. The theory proposes that when we engage with social robots the emotional response that we have is closer in kind to the response that we have towards fiction than it is to how we respond to persons. 

Please see the Publications tab for more of my research. 

Supervision

My current supervision areas are: Philosophy, Artificial Intelligence.

I can offer supervision in the Philosophy and Ethics of Artificial Intelligence. 

 

Funding and Grants

I was a co-investigator on the Leverhulme funded Relativism and Rational Tolerance (£250K). 

Teaching

Teaching Responsibilities

Undergraduate Teaching

Philosophy of Virtual Worlds

Ethics of Artificial Intelligence

Persons and the Self

Masters Teaching

Legal and Ethical Implications of Artificial Intelligence.

Philosophy and Society

Publications

Page 1 of 1 Results 1 to 27 of 27

  • Trusting Conversational Artificial Intelligence in Mental Healthcare Provision: A Fictional Dualism Model

    Sweeney, P.
    American Journal of Bioethics, vol. 26, no. 5, pp. 101-103
    Contributions to Journals: Comments and Debates
    • [ONLINE] DOI:
    • [OPEN ACCESS]

  • Personal Avatars and Personal Autonomy

    Sweeney, P.
    Reconfiguring Human Autonomy: Conceptual Challenges and Ethical Implications in the Age of AI. 1st edition. Springer Nature, pp. 109-120, 12 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters (Peer-Reviewed)
    • [ONLINE] DOI:

  • The Ethics of AI Avatars: Moral Questions in the Age of Digital Duplicates of Real People

    Sweeney, P., Nyholm, S.
    Routledge
    Books and Reports: Books

  • Beyond Deepfakes: 'Digital duplicates' or AI Simulations of Real People-An International Ethical Consensus

    Hurshman, C., Voinea, C., D'Allessandro, W., Constantinescu, M., Feroz, F., Hongladarom, S., Jurcys, P., Kozlovski, A., Lange, B., Liu, P., Menikoff, J., Syholm, S., Puzio, A., Sweeney, P., Sharma, B. G., Schwitzgebel, E., Vica, C., Weissglass, D. E., Zahiu, A., Savulescu, J., Sinnott-Armstrong, W., Mann, S. P., Earp, B. D.
    Working Papers: Preprint Papers
    • [ONLINE] DOI:

  • The Role of Avatars in Non-death Related Grief

    Sweeney, P.
    Philosophy & Technology, vol. 38, no. 3, 89
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
    • [ONLINE] DOI:
    • [OPEN ACCESS]

  • Creating durable biographies in palliative care: the role of continuing bond avatars

    Sweeney, P.
    Philosophy & Technology, vol. 38, no. 2, 50
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
    • [ONLINE] DOI:
    • [OPEN ACCESS]

  • Persons, Unique Value and Avatars

    Sweeney, P.
    Minds and Machines, vol. 35, no. 2, 13
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
    • [ONLINE] DOI:
    • [OPEN ACCESS]

  • Two disrupters to arguments from analogy for robot rights: uniqueness and completeness

    Sweeney, P.
    AI and Ethics, vol. 5, pp. 3051–3056
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
    • [ONLINE] DOI:

  • Could the destruction of a beloved robot be considered a hate crime?: An exploration of the legal and social significance of robot love.

    Sweeney, P.
    AI and Society, vol. 39, pp. 2735–2741
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
    • [ONLINE] DOI:
    • [OPEN ACCESS]

  • Avatars and the value of human uniqueness

    Sweeney, P.
    Philosophy & Technology, vol. 37, 118
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
    • [ONLINE] DOI:
    • [OPEN ACCESS]

  • Wittgensteinian Considerations on the Moral Status of Robots

    Sweeney, P.
    Wittgenstein and Artificial Intelligence: Value and Governance. Ball, B., Helliwell, A. C., Rossi, A. (eds.). Anthem Press, pp. 69-82, 14 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters
    • [ONLINE] DOI:
    • [ONLINE]
    • [ONLINE]

  • Social Robots: A fictional dualism model

    Sweeney, P.
    Rowman & Littlefield. 152 pages
    Books and Reports: Books
    • [ONLINE]

  • Avatars as Proxies

    Sweeney, P.
    Minds and Machines, vol. 33, no. 3, pp. 525-539
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
    • [ONLINE] DOI:
    • [OPEN ACCESS]

  • The ethics of ex-bots

    Sweeney, P.
    AI and Society
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
    • [ONLINE] DOI:

  • Trusting Social Robots

    Sweeney, P.
    AI and Ethics, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 419-426
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
    • [ONLINE] DOI:
    • [OPEN ACCESS]
    • [ONLINE]

  • Why indirect harms do not support social robot rights

    Sweeney, P.
    Minds and Machines, vol. 32, pp. 735–749
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
    • [ONLINE] DOI:
    • [OPEN ACCESS]

  • A fictional dualism model of social robots

    Sweeney, P.
    Ethics and Information Technology, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 465-472
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
    • [ONLINE] DOI:
    • [OPEN ACCESS]
    • [ONLINE]

  • Mourning the death of Michael Besso: Eternalism as therapy

    Sweeney, P.
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 102, no. 3, pp. 504-514
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
    • [ONLINE] DOI:
    • [OPEN ACCESS]

  • Commentary to the Commission’s proposal for the “AI Act” – Response to selected issues

    Cserne, P., Ducato, R., Zivkovic, P., Brown, A., Couzigou, I., Leontidis, G., Oren, N., Sutherland, C., Sweeney, P., Yuksel Ripley, B.
    Non-textual Forms: Web Publications and Websites
    • [ONLINE]
    • [ONLINE]

  • Nostalgia reconsidered

    Sweeney, P.
    Ratio, vol. 33, no. 3, pp. 184-190
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
    • [ONLINE] DOI:
    • [OPEN ACCESS]
    • [ONLINE]

  • The Role of the Sentence-Tokened

    Sweeney, P.
    Grazer Philosophische Studien, vol. 93, no. 3, pp. 419-428
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
    • [ONLINE] DOI:
    • [OPEN ACCESS]

  • The No-Proposition View of Vagueness

    Sweeney, P.
    Grazer Philosophische Studien, vol. 93, no. 2, pp. 179-195
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
    • [ONLINE] DOI:
    • [OPEN ACCESS]

  • Future contingents, indeterminacy and context

    Sweeney, P.
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 96, no. 3, pp. 408-422
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
    • [ONLINE] DOI:

  • Contextualism and the principle of tolerance

    Sweeney, P.
    Grazer Philosophische Studien, vol. 90, no. 1, pp. 289-306
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
    • [ONLINE] DOI:
    • [OPEN ACCESS]

  • The Utility of Content-Relativism

    Sweeney, P.
    Dialectica, vol. 68, no. 4, pp. 563-579
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
    • [ONLINE] DOI:
    • [OPEN ACCESS]

  • Vagueness and Practical Interest

    Sweeney, P., Zardini, E.
    Vagueness and Language Use. Égré, P., Klinedinst, N. (eds.). Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 249-282, 34 pages
    Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings: Chapters

  • Indexicals and utterance production

    Dodd, D., Sweeney, P.
    Philosophical Studies, vol. 150, no. 3, pp. 331-348
    Contributions to Journals: Articles
    • [ONLINE] DOI:

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