Ava Thomas Wright

Assistant Professor

Affiliated Faculty, CSSE

Contact Information 

• Office: Bldg. 47, Rm. 34B
• Virtual (Zoom): https://calpoly.zoom.us/j/9522330232 
• Email: avwright@calpoly.edu
• Website: avathomaswright.com
• Philpapers: philpeople.org/profiles/ava-thomas-wright

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Education

• Ph.D., Philosophy, University of Georgia
• M.S., Artificial Intelligence, University of Georgia
• M.A., Philosophy, Georgia State University
• J.D. cum laude, Georgia State University
• B.A., Philosophy, Psychology, Rice University

Courses Taught

• PHIL 323: Ethics, Science and Technology
• PHIL 333: Political Philosophy
• PHIL 334: Philosophy of Law
• PHIL 300: Philosophical Writing and Research

Fields

• Areas of Specialization: AI and Information Ethics, Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy, Kant's Practical Philosophy
• Areas of Competence: Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Law, Logic, Epistemology, Cognitive Science

Publications (Selected)

• "Models of rational agency in human-centered AI: the realist and constructivist alternatives" (with Jacob Sparks) AI and Ethics (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43681-025-00658-z 
• "Human-Centered AI: The Aristotelian Approach" (with Jacob Sparks), Divus Thomas 126 (2) (2023), 200-218. https://philpapers.org/archive/WRIHAT-5.pdf 
• “A Deontic Logic for Programming Rightful Machines: Kant’s Normative Demand for Consistency in the Law,” Logics for AI and Law: Joint Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Logics for New-Generation Artificial Intelligence and the International Workshop on Logic, AI and Law (College Board, 2023), 208-222. https://philpapers.org/archive/WRIADL-2.pdf 
• “A Kantian Course Correction for Machine Ethics,” in Technology Ethics: A Philosophical Introduction and Readings, ed. by Gregory Robson and Jonathan Tsou (New York: Routledge, 2023). (link) DOI: 10.4324/9781003189466-20.  
• "Kantian Freedom as 'Purposiveness,'" Kant-Studien 113 (4) (2022), 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1515/kant-2022-2039 
• "Rightful Machines," in Kant and Artificial Intelligence, ed. by Hyeongjoo Kim and Dieter Schönecker (Boston: De Gruyter, 2022), 223-238. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110706611-008. 
• "Dostoevsky's Poetics of Modern Freedom: Against Bakhtin's 'Polyphonic' Moral Truth," Labyrinth: An International Journal for Philosophy, Value Theory, and Sociocultural Hermeneutics 23 (1) (2021): 72-85. https://doi.org/10.25180/lj.v23i1.256. 
• "Mill's Social Epistemic Rationale for the Freedom to Dispute Scientific Knowledge: Why We Must Put Up With Flat-Earthers," Philosopher's Imprint 21 (14) (2021), 1-14. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.3521354.0021.014. 
• “Why Free Speech Rights for Business Corporations Cannot Be Justified,” Southwest Philosophy Review 37 (1) (2021), 187-198. https://philpapers.org/rec/WRIWMR 

Presentations (Selected)

• “Defending the Logic of Kant’s Possible Universal Consent Standard of Justice”, 14th International Kant Congress  Bonn, Germany, 8-13 September 2024
• “On Crap and Writing with ChatGPT”, American Philosophies Forum, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, 4-6 April 2024
• “Humanity Compatible AI”, Scott and Heather Kleiner Lecture Series (invited) University of Georgia, Athens, GA, 8 February 2024
• “A Deontic Logic for Programming Rightful Machines”, International Workshop on Logic, AI and Law (LAIL), Hangzhou, China,11 September 2023 (virtual)
• “Value Alignment, Control, and Uncertainty: Toward Substantive Accounts of Rational Agency in Machine Ethics", 2022 Meeting of the International Association for Computing and Philosophy (IACAP-2022) (co-speaker, with Jacob Sparks), Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA, 23 July 2022 (virtual)
• “Rightful Machines”, 5th International Conference on AI and Humanities (ICAIH 2022) (invited), Chung-Ang University (CAU), Seoul, South Korea, 23 July 2022 (virtual)
• “Why We Must Put Up With Flat-Earthers: Mill’s Social Epistemic Rationale for the Freedom to Dispute Scientific Knowledge”, Free Speech Research Cluster Lecture Series, Dedman College Interdisciplinary Institute, Southern Methodist University (invited), 26 January 2022 (virtual)
• "The AI Control Problem", American Bar Association, AI and Robotics National Institute panel (invited) (co-speaker) 13 October 2021 (virtual)
• “Rule-Based Robots: Why Autonomous Machines Can and Must be Governed by Rules of Right”, Computer Ethics—Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE) / International Association for Computing and Philosophy (IACAP) Joint Conference 2021: The Philosophy and Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, 5 July 2021 (virtual)
• "A Kantian Approach to Dilemmas: Solving the Trolley Problem", American Philosophical Association Central Division Meeting, 26 February 2020, Chicago, IL
• "A Deontic Logic for Programming Rightful Machines", AAAI/ACM 2020 Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, and Society (AIES'20), 7-8 February 2020, New York, NY
• “Two Rationales for the Duty of Veracity in ‘On a Supposed Right to Lie’”, 13th International Kant Congress, 4-6 August 2019, Oslo, Norway
• "Rightful Machines and Dilemmas", AAAI/ACM 2019 Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, and Society (AIES'19), 27 January 2019, Honolulu, HI
• "A Duty of Veracity as a Necessary Condition of Kantian Justice", American Philosophical Association Eastern Division Meeting, 10 January 2019, New York, NY

Professional Affiliations

• Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)
• American Philosophical Association
• Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
• International Association of Computing and Philosophy (IACAP)    
• International Association for Safe and Ethical AI (IASEAI)
• International Society for Ethics and Information Technology (INSEIT)
• North American Kant Society