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Dr Paula Sweeney

Dr Paula Sweeney
Dr Paula Sweeney
Dr Paula Sweeney

Senior Lecturer

Accepting PhDs

About
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
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Biography

Paula Sweeney is a senior lecturer in Philosophy. She joined the University of Aberdeen in 2009. Prior to that she completed her PhD at the University of St Andrews under the supervision of Crispin Wright. 

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

Paula's academic background is in the Philosophy of Language and the Philosophy of Logic.  Now she works in the Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence, particularly regarding AI avatars and social robots. 

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 Paula has 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. 

She is an external examiner at Lancaster University and the University of St Andrews.

Latest Publications

View My Publications

Prizes and Awards

Paula 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.

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

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Philosophy

Supervising
Accepting PhDs
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Research Specialisms

  • Philosophy
  • Artificial Intelligence

Our research specialisms are based on the Higher Education Classification of Subjects (HECoS) which is HESA open data, published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International 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.

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

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Books and Reports

Chapters in Books, Reports and Conference Proceedings

Contributions to Journals

Non-textual Forms

Working Papers

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