CLAIR BALESHTA

One of my current research projects focuses on the use of ‘harm reduction’ methods in novel health care contexts. Despite harm reduction’s historical ties to drug policy, a number of recent proposals have emerged to apply the approach in domains other than drug use. Though such proposals offer new prospects for ameliorating harms in a wider range of domains, there exist significant barriers to the successful expansion of harm reduction programs. To address these barriers, I aim to develop a distinctive philosophical account of harm reduction that offers a stronger foundation on which to expand interventions. In particular, I propose and defend a feminist relational account of harm reduction. Part of this project also involves applying my harm reduction account to the use of medical AI technologies specifically.

Another current project focuses on the concept of AI harm. Although there exists significant discourse surrounding the harms of AI, there has been little explicit discussion as to what constitutes ‘harm’ when looking at the impacts of this technology. This is a serious omission – without a clear conceptual definition of harm to draw on when developing regulatory frameworks or making policy decisions regarding AI, we’re left to rely on intuitive notions of harm prone to biases, inconsistencies, and other inaccuracies. Moreover, though appealing to the philosophical literature on harm may seem like a natural solution to this problem, standard accounts of harm are similarly ill-fit to address the harms of AI. The current harm scholarship relies on a highly idealized view of harm. As a result, accounts often ignore the impacts of social and structural factors on our understanding of harm, offering conceptions that fail to accurately account for real world harms like those of AI. Given that harm is an important tool for understanding and addressing the effects of this technology, the aim of this project is to develop a novel account of AI harm – one that understands harm in a relational sense and can address AI’s disproportionate impacts on members of marginalized groups.

I also work on topics including dis/trust and AI, harm in feminist philosophy, and social isolation and relational autonomy.

Teaching Assistant/Tutorial Instructor

PHILOSOPHY 1040 Ethics, Law and Politics, Western University (Jan 2024 – May 2024)

PHILOSOPHY 1040 Ethics, Law and Politics, Western University (Jan 2023 – May 2023)

PHILOSOPHY 1020: Introduction to Philosophy, Western University (Sept 2021 – May 2022)

PHIL 1010: Social and Political Issues, University of Guelph (Jan 2021 – May 2021)

PHIL 2120: Ethics, University of Guelph (Sept 2020 – Jan 2021)

Teaching Assistant

PHILOSOPHY 2062: Power, Oppression, and Privilege, Western University (Sept 2022 – Jan 2022)

INTEG 221/PHIL 291: The Social Nature of Knowledge, University of Waterloo (Jan 2020 – May 2020)

INTEG 221/PHIL 291: The Social Nature of Knowledge, University of Waterloo (Jan 2019 – May 2019)

Guest Lecturer

“Harm and Artificial Intelligence,” PHILOSOPHY 9232: Ethical & Societal Implications of A.I., Western University, February 16, 2023.

“Responsibility for Justice,” PHILOSOPHY 2060: Power, Oppression, and Privilege, Western University, November 28, 2022.