Experience

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  Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence

  • University of Cambridge

  • Assistant Professor

    • Jul 2023 - Present
    • University of Cambridge

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  The Australian National University

  • Australia

  • Research Fellow

    • Sep 2019 - Sep 2023
    • Australia

    My current project focuses on creating ethical machine intelligence: on both developing the theoretical framework necessary to understand the challenges and opportunities that AI affords and designing technology to implement my findings. Through working with other philosophers, as well as social and computer scientists, the Humanising Machine Intelligence project will progress through discovery, foundations and design to reshape our understanding of what it means to be ethical in the age of machine intelligences.

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  BSET: British Society for Ethical Theory

  • CyberSmith

    • 2014 - Sep 2023

    I am in charge of BSET's website and online profile.For more information concerning BSET, see http://www.bset.org.uk/

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  The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute

  • Jerusalem

  • Polonsky Fellow (Post-Doctoral Researcher)

    • Aug 2014 - Sep 2019
    • Jerusalem

    I work in ethics, both normative and applied. In normative ethics, I work primarily on supererogation. Supererogatory actions are those that go above and beyond the call of duty. In my work on supererogation, I examine both the conditions that an act must meet to be counted as supererogatory as well as the value of including this class of normative action in our ethical theories. Often overlooked in the traditional ethical discussions of liars, murderers, promise-breakers and thieves, I focus on the wonderfully positive side of our moral lives and encourage us all to take more seriously those modest gift-givers, blood-donors, saints and heroes who similarly populate our moral world. In applied ethics, I work on the ethics of technology, specifically of technologies of virtuality and artificiality. I examine the ethical status of these technologies and their products as well as the potential that they have to challenge our current ethics and its application, by demanding the creation of new principles to govern behaviour or even changes to our conceptual framework. Within my project, I focus on three topics: virtual child pornography; artificial agents; and virtual reality. For more information, see my website www.clairebenn.wordpress.com or my academia.edu page

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  The Cambridge Women in Philosophy Group

  • University of Cambridge

  • Organising Chair

    • 2011 - 2014
    • University of Cambridge

    Women are under-represented in philosophy, and this can lead to issues that the Women in Philosophy Group aims to address. Through a series of talks and workshops, we provide a forum for networking and celebrating the work that women are doing in academic philosophy at Cambridge and around the world. Our group shares in a larger movement of The Society of Women in Philosophy (SWIP UK).For more information, please see our website at http://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/news_events/Women_in_Philosophy_Society.html

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  Faculty of Philosophy, University of Cambridge

  • Supervisor (Tutor)

    • 2010 - 2014

    First Year Ethics 2011-2014Second Year Ethics 2011-2014Second Year Political Philosophy 2010-2014Third (Final) Year Political Philosophy 2010-2014First Year Formal and Philosophical Logic 2010-2014Second Year Philosophical Logic 2010-2014Dissertations and extended essays in ethics and political philosophy

  • Organiser and Instructor of the Writing Skills Workshop for first year students

    • 2013 - 2013

    I am a member of the organising committee and instructor for the Writing Skills Workshop teaching first years the basics of writing high quality philosophy essays.

  • Lectured on the Non-Identity Problem

    • Oct 2012 - Nov 2012

    I was asked by the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Cambridge to give a 4 week lecture on the Non-Identity Problem to final year students taking the Ethics paper and to final year students taking the Political Philosophy paper.Please contact me for student testimonials.

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  The Limits of Duty Workshop

  • University of Cambridge

  • Convenor, Fundraiser and Co-organiser

    • 2013 - Jun 2013
    • University of Cambridge

    In order to bring together people from relatively disparate areas of philosophy who work on the boundary between duty and supererogation, I am organising a workshop on ‘The Limits of Duty’, which will take place in Cambridge on the 14th of June 2013. If you would like to attend, please visit our workshop webpage at http://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/news_events/limits_of_duty/limits_of_duty.html

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  Alterity, Intersubjectivity, Ethics: Exploring Theoretical Directions for the Study of Ethics

  • Cambridge

  • Convenor, Fundraiser and Organiser

    • 2013 - 2013
    • Cambridge

    This workshop brought together people working in different fields to open discussion of the 'ethical turn' in the arts and humanities, questioning the the prioritisation of certain notions of the ‘self’ over inquiries into the nature of the ethical ‘subject’.For more information, see http://clairebenn.wordpress.com/conferences-and-groups/alterity-intersubjectivity-and-ethics-workshop/

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  Various Cambridge Colleges

  • Cambridge

  • Interviewer (of prospective Cambridge undergraduates)

    • 2013 - 2013
    • Cambridge

    I interviewed prospective undergraduates on behalf of several Cambridge Colleges, making recommendations for admittance.

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  University of Cambridge Moral Sciences Club

  • University of Cambridge

  • Organiser and Secretary

    • 2011 - 2012
    • University of Cambridge

    I was the Co-organiser and Secretary of the University of Cambridge Moral Sciences Club, the main philosophical society of the university.

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  Faculty of Philosophy, University of Cambridge

  • University of Cambridge

  • Seminar leader

    • 2010 - 2012
    • University of Cambridge

    I was the Discussion Group leader for first year students in Ethics, Political Philosophy, Metaphysics and Mind from 2010 to 2012.I taught a Formal Logic class to first year students from 2010 to 2012.