I am an Early Career Research Fellow at the University of Oxford's Institute for Ethics in AI, and a Junior Research Fellow in Philosophy at Jesus College, Oxford. I am also a Research Associate at the Institute for Ethics in Technology, Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH). In 2027, I will begin as a Fellow at the Human Abilities Centre in Berlin.
I received my PhD in Philosophy from New York University. I have a BPhil in Philosophy and a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, both from Oxford.
I work in ethics, the philosophy of AI, metaphysics, and social ontology. My central question is how the inner structure of an agent – human, AI, or collective – shapes what it can do and what it can be held responsible for. I have also published work in early modern philosophy and the metaphysics of time.
At Oxford, I teach Ethics, Ethics of AI, and Philosophical Foundations of AI.
Current Research Projects
There isn’t much you are infallibly able to do – but surely you are infallibly able to take some very modest step towards action, like trying or deciding? I claim not. In my view, there are no fallibility-proof steps along the path to action, with significant implications for risk, responsibility, and the metaphysics of abilities.
An evaluation assesses one AI system as more capable than another – but more capable how? I distinguish several dimensions along which AI capabilities come in degrees, and argue that current evaluation practice routinely conflates them in ways that matter.
Tomorrow’s corporations and states will be human–AI hybrids. I explore how these hybrids might differ from their human-only predecessors, and what their rise will mean for collective responsibility and the ethics of AI.
Publications
Philosophical Studies 183
The Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP) says you’re morally responsible for something you have done only if you could have done otherwise. I appeal to the fallibility of human abilities to undermine a popular source of support for PAP.
Erkenntnis 90
In my view, we’re not infallibly able to do anything. But what is an ability’s fallibility? It’s not just about the likelihood of success if you try, since not even your abilities to try are infallible. I propose an alternative account, which deploys the notion of an action’s ‘fragility’ (somewhat analogous to epistemic safety).
Philosophical Studies 178
Suppose it’s raining, so you grab your umbrella. A-theorists about time think that once the rain stops, the fact that it is raining no longer obtains, but then it looks like that fact can no longer explain your action. I use this point to make trouble for the A-theory.
Hume Studies 43:1 (backdated to 2017)
Hume wrote that his Treatise ‘tends to give us a notion of the imperfections and narrow limits of human understanding.’ I argue that this skeptical aim explains why he defines ‘cause’ twice in the Treatise, and does so again in the first Enquiry.
Courses I've Taught
Oxford tutorials
Oxford lectures and seminars
NYU, primary instructor
Convening
University of Oxford, July 2025
Supported by the Mind Association and Oxford’s Institute for Ethics in AI.
Hamburg University of Technology, May 2025
Curriculum vitae
Download CV ↓