Fabio Tollon, M.A.

Research Project

From Responsibility Gaps to Responsibility Maps

Research Interests

• Ethics of AI
• Machine Consciousness
• Ethics of Big Data
• Action Theory
• Moral Agency/Patiency

CV

Since 04/2020
Doctoral Candidate at the DFG Research Training Group 2073 Integrating Ethics and Epistemology of Scientific Research, Bielefeld University

October – November 2022
Visiting researcher at the Center for Ethics and Philosophy in Practice (CEPP), Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (funded by a short-term fellowship)

February – April 2022
Visiting researcher at the Working Group on the Philosophy of Technology at KU Leuven.

2018 – 2019
Master of Arts (Philosophy), Stellenbosch University, South Africa

2017 – 2019
Teaching Assistant (philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, epistemology, engineering ethics), Department of Philosophy, Stellenbosch University, South Africa

2017
Bachelor of Arts Honours. Philosophy, Stellenbosch University, South Africa

2013 – 2016
Bachelor of Arts. Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE), Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Publications

Tollon, Fabio (2022): Responsibility gaps and the reactive attitudes. AI and Ethics.

Tollon, Fabio (2022): Is AI a problem for forward looking moral responsibility? The problem followed by a solution. In: Jembere, E.; Gerber, A.J.; Viriri, S. & Pillay A. (eds), Artificial Intelligence Research. SACAIR 2021 [Communications in Computer and Information Science, Vol. 1551]. Springer: Cham. 307–318.

Tollon, Fabio & Naidoo, Kiasha (2021): On and beyond artifacts in moral relations: Accounting for power and violence in Coeckelbergh’s Social Relationism. AI & Society.

Tollon, Fabio (2021): Do others mind? Moral agents without mental states. South African Journal of Philosophy 40(2), 182–194.

Tollon, Fabio (2021): Designed to seduce: Epistemically retrograde ideation and YouTube’s recommender system. International Journal of Technoethics 12(2), 60–71.

Tollon, Fabio (2021): Artifacts and affordances: from designed properties to possibilities for action. AI & Society.

Tollon, Fabio (2020): The artificial view: toward a non-anthropocentric account of moral patiency. Ethics and Information Technology.

Tollon, Fabio (2019): Moral agents or mindless machines? A critical appraisal of agency in artificial systems. Hungarian Philosophical Review 63(4), pp. 9–23.

Book Reviews

Tollon, Fabio, 2021, Cyber Republic, Prometheus 37(3).

Tollon, Fabio (2021): The Oxford Handbook of the Ethics of AI, Prometheus 37(2).

Tollon, Fabio (2021): Action and Interaction, Metapsychology Online Reviews 25(16).

Tollon, Fabio (2020): Transhumanism as a New Social Movement: The Techno-Centred Imagination, Metapsychology Online Reviews 24(39).

Presentations

01/2022
Thinking Social Relationism from Africa, Intercultural Ethics and Technology Conference 2022, University of Twente, 27-28 January 2022

11/2021
From Responsibility Gaps to Responsibility Maps, Australasian Postgraduate Philosophy Conference, Australasian Association of Philosophy (online), 20-21 November 2021.

10/2021
Artifacts and Affordances: From Designed Properties to Possibilities for Action, Changing Values, Changing Technologies, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands, 12-13 October 2021.

09/2021
Unpredictable Futures: Why, and How, we are Responsible for AI, Philosophy and Theory of Artificial Intelligence. Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden, 27-28 September 2021.

07/2021
Designed to Seduce, UCD Online Conference on the Philosophy of Conspiracy Theories. University College Dublin, Ireland, 1-2 July 2021.

11/2020
Do Others Mind? Moral Agents Without Mental States. Philosophy of Human-Technology Relations. University of Twente, The Netherlands, 4-7 November 2020.

12/2019
Toward a Coherent Account of Moral Agency. Proceedings of the South African Forum for Artificial Intelligence Research. Vol 2540. Cape Town, South Africa, 3-6 December 2019.

09/2019
Functional Moral Agency. 4IR: Philosophical, Ethical and Legal Perspectives. University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, 3-5 September 2019.

Teaching

Teaching Assistant Roles:

• 2019: Critical Social Theory and Ideology Critique / Philosophy 344 (Stellenbosch University, South Africa)
• 2018+2019: Philosophy of Science and Epistemology / Philosophy 214 (Stellenbosch University)
• 2018:2019: History of Analytic Philosophy and Philosophy of Mind / Philosophy 354 (Stellenbosch University)
• 2018: Engineering and Ethics 314 and 414 (Stellenbosch University)
• 2018: Science, Ethics and Aesthetics in a Philosophical Perspective (for international students), Summer School Philosophy Elective (Stellenbosch University)

Service to the Profession and Other Activities

since 2020
Book reviews editor for the Journal of Ethics and Emerging Technologies

since 2019
Supervision of third-year students’ research projects in Ethics of Artificial Intelligence

since 2018
Guest lecturer at the Creative Academy, Cape Town