Researchers from Ireland, the UK and the US have warned that the growth in hyperscale AI training datasets threaten to propagate the worst aspects of their internet sources, contending that a recently-released academic dataset features ‘troublesome and explicit images and text pairs of rape, pornography, malign stereotypes, racist and ethnic slurs, and other extremely problematic […]

Facebook tried to clean up its latest scandal by releasing internal documents. Then reporters released more of them.

Timnit Gebru, Margaret Mitchell, and other leaders discuss tensions surrounding AI ethics in big tech and what teams need to succeed.

One revenue chart explains the problem, and how to fix it.

User agents are pieces of software that represent the user, a natural person, in their digital interactions. Examples include Web browsers, operating systems, s

The reanimation of the pseudosciences of physiognomy and phrenology at scale through computer vision and machine learning is a matter of urgent concern. This Ar

FFS FACEBOOK

Legal and ethical issues around access to born-digital stuff. Uncompromising and smart; sometimes the answer really is "don't accept it; if you did accept it, toss it." DRAFT; replace later with final version.

Tell students: DO NOT LET ME CATCH YOU GARBAGE HUMANNING.

The increase in research data-sharing practices has highlighted a growing number of ethical challenges related to the sharing and publication of datasets. In order to support the stakeholders involved in the publication of research data, the FORCE11 Research Data Publishing Ethics Working Group, in collaboration with Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), has developed recommendations toward best practices for handling ethical cases related to the sharing and publication of research data. The recommendations posted are available together as PDF "Recommendations for the handling of ethical concerns relating to the publication of  research data" or broken apart by categories of considerations. Each include background information, examples, and recommended workflows for cases that may arise during the review & publication processes or post-publication.

Author(s): Wong, Richmond Y | Abstract: User experience (UX) professionals’ attempts to address social values as a part of their work practice can overlap with tactics to contest, resist, or change the companies they work for. This paper studies tactics that take place in this overlap, where UX professionals try to re-shape the values embodied and promoted by their companies, in addition to the values embodied and promoted in the technical systems and products that their companies produce. Through interviews with UX professionals working at large U.S.-based technology companies and observations at UX meetup events, this paper identifies tactics used towards three goals: (1) creating space for UX expertise to address values; (2) making values visible and relevant to other organizational stakeholders; and (3) changing organizational processes and orientations towards values. This paper analyzes these as tactics of resistance: UX professionals seek to subvert or change existing practices and organizational structures towards more values-conscious ends. Yet, these tactics of resistance often rely on the dominant discourses and logics of the technology industry. The paper characterizes these as partial or “soft” tactics, but also argues that they nevertheless hold possibilities for enacting values-oriented changes.

Government agencies are attempting to measure people’s trust in AI without considering whether the AI is trustworthy

Are you looking for my Spring 2021 Online Communities class? You’ll find it archived here! Fall 2021 Tech Ethics & Policy  Professor: Dr. Casey Fiesler Location: TikTok (@professorcasey) Time: whenever you want!   TikTok Playlist: Overview/Announcement | 1.1 A Batty Dilemma | 1.2 Usefulness of Et...

In early 2018, officials at University College London were shocked to learn that meetings organized by “race scientists” and neo-Nazis,…

A new study reveals models aren’t reporting enough, leaving users blind to potential model errors such as flawed training data and calibration drift.

In 1966, Henry Beecher published his foundational paper “Ethics and Clinical Research,” bringing to light unethical experiments that were routinely being conducted by leading universities and government agencies. A common theme was the lack of voluntary consent. Research regulations surrounding laboratory experiments flourished after his work. More than half a century later, we seek to follow in his footsteps and identify a new domain of risk to the public: certain types of field experiments. The nature of experimental research has changed greatly since the Belmont Report. Due in part to technological advances including social media, experimenters now target and affect whole societies, releasing interventions into a living public, often without sufficient review or controls. A large number of social science field experiments do not reflect compliance with current ethical and legal requirements that govern research with human participants. Real-world interventions are being conducted without consent or notice to the public they affect. Follow-ups and debriefing are routinely not being undertaken with the populations that experimenters injure. Importantly, even when ethical research guidelines are followed, researchers are following principles developed for experiments in controlled settings, with little assessment or protection for the wider societies within which individuals are embedded. We strive to improve the ethics of future work by advocating the creation of new norms, illustrating classes of field experiments where scholars do not appear to have recognized the ways such research circumvents ethical standards by putting people, including those outside the manipulated group, into harm’s way.  There are no data underlying this work.

In a sea of data, the use of student success analytics may unintentionally result in consequences that benefit some students while harming others.