This article argues that existing approaches to programming ethical AI fail to resolve a serious moral-semantic trilemma, generating interpretations of ethical requirements that are either too semantically strict, too semantically flexible, or overly unpredictable. This paper then illustrates the trilemma utilizing a recently proposed ‘general ethical dilemma analyzer,’ GenEth. Finally, it uses empirical evidence to argue that human beings resolve the semantic trilemma using general cognitive and motivational processes involving ‘mental time-travel,’ whereby we simulate different possible pasts and futures. I (...) demonstrate how mental time-travel psychology leads us to resolve the semantic trilemma through a six-step process of interpersonal negotiation and renegotiation, and then conclude by showing how comparative advantages in processing power would plausibly cause AI to use similar processes to solve the semantic trilemma more reliably than we do, leading AI to make better moral-semantic choices than humans do by our very own lights. (shrink)

Today humanity is in the midst of the massive expansion of new and fundamental technology, represented by advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems. The ongoing revolution of these technologies and their profound impact across various sectors, has triggered discussions about the characteristics and values that should guide their use and development in a responsible manner. In this paper, we conduct a systematic literature review with the aim of pointing out existing challenges and required principles in AI-based systems in different industries. We (...) discuss our findings and provide general recommendations to be considered during AI deployment in production. The results have shown many gaps and concerns towards responsible AI and integration of complex AI models in the industry that the research community could address. (shrink)

Policy discussions and corporate strategies on machine learning are increasingly championing data reuse as a key element in digital transformations. These aspirations are often coupled with a focus on responsibility, ethics and transparency, as well as emergent forms of regulation that seek to set demands for corporate conduct and the protection of civic rights. And the Protective measures include methods of traceability and assessments of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ datasets and algorithms that are considered to be traceable, stable and contained. However, (...) these ways of thinking about both technology and ethics obscure a fundamental issue, namely that machine learning systems entangle data, algorithms and more-than-human environments in ways that challenge a well-defined separation. This article investigates the fundamental fallacy of most data reuse strategies as well as their regulation and mitigation strategies that data can somehow be followed, contained and controlled in machine learning processes. Instead, the article argues that we need to understand the reuse of data as an inherently entangled phenomenon. To examine this tension between the discursive regimes and the realities of data reuse, we advance the notion of reuse entanglements as an analytical lens. The main contribution of the article is the conceptualization of reuse that places entanglements at its core and the articulation of its relevance using empirical illustrations. This is important, we argue, for our understanding of the nature of data and algorithms, for the practical uses of data and algorithms and our attitudes regarding ethics, responsibility and regulation. (shrink)

The distinction between distributive and non-distributive profiles figures prominently in current evaluations of the ethical and epistemological risks that are associated with automated profiling practices. The diagnosis that non-distributive profiles may coincidentally situate an individual in the wrong category is often perceived as the central shortcoming of such profiles. According to this diagnosis, most risks can be retraced to the use of non-universal generalisations and various other statistical associations. This article develops a top-down analysis of non-distributive profiles in which this (...) fallibility of non-distributive profiles is no longer central. Instead, it focuses on how profiling creates various asymmetries between an individual data-subject and a profiler. The emergence of informational, interest, and perspectival asymmetries between data-subject and profiler explains how non-distributive profiles weaken the epistemic position of a profiled individual. This alternative analysis provides a more balanced assessment of the epistemic risks associated with non-distributive profiles. (shrink)

This paper develops and refines the suggestion that logical systems are conceptual artefacts that are the outcome of a design-process by exploring how a constructionist epistemology and meta-philosophy can be integrated within the philosophy of logic.

The increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) by public actors has led to a push for more transparency. Previous research has conceptualized AI transparency as knowledge that empowers citizens and experts to make informed choices about the use and governance of AI. Conversely, in this paper, we critically examine if transparency-as-knowledge is an appropriate concept for a public realm where private interests intersect with democratic concerns. We conduct a practice-based design research study in which we prototype and evaluate a transparent (...) smart electric vehicle charge point, and investigate experts’ and citizens’ understanding of AI transparency. We find that citizens experience transparency as burdensome; experts hope transparency ensures acceptance, while citizens are mostly indifferent to AI; and with absent means of control, citizens question transparency’s relevance. The tensions we identify suggest transparency cannot be reduced to a product feature, but should be seen as a mediator of debate between experts and citizens. (shrink)

As information technologies have become synonymous with progress in modern society, several ethical concerns have surfaced about their societal implications. In the past few decades, information technologies have had a value-laden impact on social evolution. However, there is limited agreement on the responsibility of businesses and innovators concerning the ethical aspects of information technologies. There is a need to understand the role of business incentives and attitudes in driving technological progress and to understand how they steer the ethics discourse on (...) technology. In the information technology industry, there is an observed trivialization of ethics supported by a business driven and technology-centric approach to ethics. This trivialization rests on hardened beliefs, ideologies, and arguments which hint at reduced accountability for business and tend to individualize social responsibility. The phenomenon of ethics trivialization needs to be duly addressed to resolve the tensions between business needs and ethical concerns. This paper has identified from literature and conceptually analyzed the beliefs and ideologies underlying ethics trivialization which undermine ethics in business contexts. The paper has attempted to address the business concerns indicated by this phenomenon as well as highlight the weaknesses of its assumptions, rhetoric, and justifications. The aim of this paper is to systematically present the justifications in favor of and against the practice of ethics trivialization in the information technology domain, thereby highlighting the need to develop frameworks for assessment of ethical responsibility, accountability, and democratization of the value trade-offs involved in the design of technologies. (shrink)

Data-driven technologies have come to pervade almost every aspect of business life, extending to employee monitoring and algorithmic management. How can employee privacy be protected in the age of datafication? This article surveys the potential and shortcomings of a number of legal and technical solutions to show the advantages of human rights-based approaches in addressing corporate responsibility to respect privacy and strengthen human agency. Based on this notion, we develop a process-oriented model of Privacy Due Diligence to complement existing frameworks (...) for safeguarding employee privacy in an era of Big Data surveillance. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies offer new ways of conducting decision-making tasks that influence the daily lives of citizens, such as coordinating traffic, energy distributions, and crowd flows. They can sort, rank, and prioritize the distribution of fines or public funds and resources. Many of the changes that AI technologies promise to bring to such tasks pertain to decisions that are collectively binding. When these technologies become part of critical infrastructures, such as energy networks, citizens are affected by these decisions whether (...) they like it or not, and they usually do not have much say in them. The democratic challenge for those working on AI technologies with collectively binding effects is both to _develop_ and _deploy_ technologies in such a way that the democratic legitimacy of the relevant decisions is safeguarded. In this paper, we develop a conceptual framework to help policymakers, project managers, innovators, and technologists to assess and develop approaches to democratize AI. This framework embraces a broad sociotechnical perspective that highlights the interactions between technology and the complexities and contingencies of the context in which these technologies are embedded. We start from the problem-based and practice-oriented approach to democracy theory as developed by political theorist Mark Warren. We build on this approach to describe practices that can enhance or challenge democracy in political systems and extend it to integrate a sociotechnical perspective and make the role of technology explicit. We then examine how AI technologies can play a role in these practices to improve or inhibit the democratic nature of political systems. We focus in particular on AI-supported political systems in the energy domain. (shrink)

Odgovornost pripisujemo sa namerom da postignemo neki cilj. Jedno od opših mesta u filozofskoj literaturi je da osobi možemo pripisati moralnu odgovornost ako su zadovoljena bar dva uslova: da subjekt delanja ima kontrolu nad svojim postupcima i da je u stanju da navede razloge u prilog svog postupka. Međutim, četvrtu industrijsku revoluciju karakterišu sociotehnološke pojave koje nas potencijalno suočavaju sa tzv. problemom jaza u odgovornosti. Rasprave o odgovornosti u kontekstu veštačke inteligencije karakteriše nejasna i neodređena upotreba ovog pojma. Da bismo (...) razumeli problem jaza u odgovornosti, njegove domete, kao i eventualna rešenja, u radu razmatramo različite vrste pojma odgovornosti. Identifikujući uslove primene ovih pojmova uviđamo da problem jaza u moralnoj odgovornosti dobija na značaju utoliko što nije očigledno na koji način bi mogao biti premošćen. (shrink)

The paper presents a framework to realise “meaningful human control” over Automated Driving Systems. The framework is based on an original synthesis of the results of the multidisciplinary research project “Meaningful Human Control over Automated Driving Systems” lead by a team of engineers, philosophers, and psychologists at Delft University of the Technology from 2017 to 2021. Meaningful human control aims at protecting safety and reducing responsibility gaps. The framework is based on the core assumption that human persons and institutions, not (...) hardware and software and their algorithms, should remain ultimately—though not necessarily directly—in control of, and thus morally responsible for, the potentially dangerous operation of driving in mixed traffic. We propose an Automated Driving System to be under meaningful human control if it behaves according to the relevant reasons of the relevant human actors (tracking), and that any potentially dangerous event can be related to a human actor (tracing). We operationalise the requirements for meaningful human control through multidisciplinary work in philosophy, behavioural psychology and traffic engineering. The tracking condition is operationalised via a proximal scale of reasons and the tracing condition via an evaluation cascade table. We review the implications and requirements for the behaviour and skills of human actors, in particular related to supervisory control and driver education. We show how the evaluation cascade table can be applied in concrete engineering use cases in combination with the definition of core components to expose deficiencies in traceability, thereby avoiding so-called responsibility gaps. Future research directions are proposed to expand the philosophical framework and use cases, supervisory control and driver education, real-world pilots and institutional embedding. (shrink)

In an important and widely cited paper, Zerilli, Knott, Maclaurin, and Gavaghan (2019) argue that opaque AI decision makers are at least as transparent as human decision makers and therefore the concern that opaque AI is not sufficiently transparent is mistaken. I argue that the concern about opaque AI should not be understood as the concern that such AI fails to be transparent in a way that humans are transparent. Rather, the concern is that the way in which opaque AI (...) is opaque is very different than the way in which humans are opaque. What matters is the degree to which the opaque processes of a class of decision makers are stable, uniform, and safe. The degree to which such processes have these features in humans is higher than the degree to which such processes have these features in opaque AI. And therefore we should require AI to be more transparent than humans. (shrink)

This paper argues that one problem that besets black-box AI is that it lacks algorithmic justifiability. We argue that the norm of shared decision making in medical care presupposes that treatment decisions ought to be justifiable to the patient. Medical decisions are justifiable to the patient only if they are compatible with the patient’s values and preferences and the patient is able to see that this is so. Patient-directed justifiability is threatened by black-box AIs because the lack of rationale provided (...) for the decision makes it difficult for patients to ascertain whether there is adequate fit between the decision and the patient’s values. This paper argues that achieving algorithmic transparency does not help patients bridge the gap between their medical decisions and values. We introduce a hypothetical model we call Justifiable AI to illustrate this argument. Justifiable AI aims at modelling normative and evaluative considerations in an explicit way so as to provide a stepping stone for patient and physician to jointly decide on a course of treatment. If our argument succeeds, we should prefer these justifiable models over alternatives if the former are available and aim to develop said models if not. (shrink)

This chapter examines the possibility of using AI technologies to improve human moral reasoning and decision-making, especially in the context of purchasing and consumer decisions. We characterize such AI technologies as artificial ethics assistants (AEAs). We focus on just one part of the AI-aided moral improvement question: the case of the individual who wants to improve their morality, where what constitutes an improvement is evaluated by the individual’s own values. We distinguish three broad areas in which an individual might think (...) their own moral reasoning and decision-making could be improved: one’s actions, character, or other evaluable attributes fall short of one’s values and moral beliefs; one sometimes misjudges or is uncertain about what the right thing to do is in particular situations, given one’s values; one is uncertain about some fundamental moral questions or recognizes a possibility that some of one’s core moral beliefs and values are mistaken. We sketch why one might think that AI tools could be used to support moral improvement in those areas, and describe two types of assistance: preparatory assistance, including advice and training supplied in advance of moral deliberation; and on-the-spot assistance, including on-the-spot advice and facilitation of moral functioning over the course of moral deliberation. Then, we turn to some of the ethical issues that AEAs might raise, looking in particular at three under-appreciated problems posed by the use of AI for moral self-improvement: namely, reliance on sensitive moral data; the inescapability of outside influences on AEAs; and AEA usage prompting the user to adopt beliefs and make decisions without adequate reasons. (shrink)

This paper has two aims. The first is to explain a type of wrong that arises when agents obscure responsibility for their actions. Call it “agency laundering.” The second is to use the concept of agency laundering to understand the underlying moral issues in a number of recent cases involving algorithmic decision systems. From the Proceedings of the 14th International Conference, iConference 2019, Washington D.C., March 31-April 3, 2019.

This chapter will explore the dynamics of power underpinning ethical issues within smart cities via a new paradigm derived from Systems Theory. The smart city is an expression of technology as a socio-technical system. The vision of the smart city contains a deep fusion of many different technical systems into a single integrated “ambient intelligence”. ETICA Project, 2010, p. 102). Citizens of the smart city will not experience a succession of different technologies, but a single intelligent and responsive environment through (...) which they move. Analysis of such an environment requires a framework which transcends traditional ontologically-based models in order to accommodate this deep fusion. This chapter will outline a framework based on Latour’s Actor-Network Theory and Luhmann’s treatment of society as an autopoetic system. We shall use this framework to map the influence of relevant factors on ethical issues, irrespective of their composition or type. For example, under this treatment, both human praxis and technical design can be viewed as comparable tools of domination. This chapter will provide a framework for the analysis of relations between any elements of the smart city, ranging from top-level urban management processes down to individual device operations. While we will illustrate the use of this schema through examination of ethical issues arising from power dynamics within the smart city, it is intended that this example will demonstrate the wider utility of the model in general. (shrink)

This study investigates the ethical use of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies (BD + AI)—using an empirical approach. The paper categorises the current literature and presents a multi-case study of 'on-the-ground' ethical issues that uses qualitative tools to analyse findings from ten targeted case-studies from a range of domains. The analysis coalesces identified singular ethical issues, (from the literature), into clusters to offer a comparison with the proposed classification in the literature. The results show that despite the variety (...) of different social domains, fields, and applications of AI, there is overlap and correlation between the organisations’ ethical concerns. This more detailed understanding of ethics in AI + BD is required to ensure that the multitude of suggested ways of addressing them can be targeted and succeed in mitigating the pertinent ethical issues that are often discussed in the literature. (shrink)

Embedding ethics modules within computer science courses has become a popular response to the growing recognition that CS programs need to better equip their students to navigate the ethical dimensions of computing technologies like AI, machine learning, and big data analytics. However, the popularity of this approach has outpaced the evidence of its positive outcomes. To help close that gap, this empirical study reports positive results from Northeastern’s program that embeds values analysis modules into CS courses. The resulting data suggest (...) that such modules have a positive effect on students’ moral attitudes and that students leave the modules believing they are more prepared to navigate the ethical dimensions they’ll likely face in their eventual careers. Importantly, these gains were accomplished at an institution without a philosophy doctoral program, suggesting this strategy can be effectively employed by a wider range of institutions than many have thought. (shrink)

In this article, we explore how digital marketers think about marketing in the age of Big Data surveillance, automatic computational analyses, and algorithmic shaping of choice contexts. Our starting point is a contradiction at the heart of digital marketing namely that digital marketing brings about unprecedented levels of consumer empowerment and autonomy and total control over and manipulation of consumer decision-making. We argue that this contradiction of digital marketing is resolved via the notion of relevance, which represents what Fredric Jameson (...) calls a symbolic act. The notion of the symbolic act lets us see the centering of relevance as a creative act of digital marketers who undertake to symbolically resolve a contradiction that cannot otherwise be resolved. Specifically, we suggest that relevance allows marketers to believe that in the age of surveillance capitalism, the manipulation of choice contexts and decision-making is the same as consumer empowerment. Put differently, relevance is the moment when marketing manipulation disappears and all that is left is the empowered consumer. To create relevant manipulations that are experienced as empowering by the consumer requires always-on surveillance, massive analyses of consumer data and hyper-targeted responses, in short, a persistent marketing presence. The vision of digital marketing is therefore a fascinating one: marketing disappears at precisely the moment when it extends throughout the life without limit. (shrink)

We are sceptical of concerns over the opacity of algorithmic decision tools. While transparency and explainability are certainly important desiderata in algorithmic governance, we worry that automated decision-making is being held to an unrealistically high standard, possibly owing to an unrealistically high estimate of the degree of transparency attainable from human decision-makers. In this paper, we review evidence demonstrating that much human decision-making is fraught with transparency problems, show in what respects AI fares little worse or better and argue that (...) at least some regulatory proposals for explainable AI could end up setting the bar higher than is necessary or indeed helpful. The demands of practical reason require the justification of action to be pitched at the level of practical reason. Decision tools that support or supplant practical reasoning should not be expected to aim higher than this. We cast this desideratum in terms of Daniel Dennett’s theory of the “intentional stance” and argue that since the justification of action for human purposes takes the form of intentional stance explanation, the justification of algorithmic decisions should take the same form. In practice, this means that the sorts of explanations for algorithmic decisions that are analogous to intentional stance explanations should be preferred over ones that aim at the architectural innards of a decision tool. (shrink)

Although existing work draws attention to a range of obstacles in realizing fair AI, the field lacks an account that emphasizes how these worries hang together in a systematic way. Furthermore, a review of the fair AI and philosophical literature demonstrates the unsuitability of ‘treat like cases alike’ and other intuitive notions as conceptions of fairness. That review then generates three desiderata for a replacement conception of fairness valuable to AI research: (1) It must provide a meta-theory for understanding tradeoffs, (...) entailing that it must be flexible enough to capture diverse species of objection to decisions. (2) It must not appeal to an impartial perspective (neutral data, objective data, or final arbiter.) (3) It must foreground the way in which judgments of fairness are sensitive to context, i.e., to historical and institutional states of affairs. We argue that a conception of fairness as appropriate concession in the historical iteration of institutional decisions meets these three desiderata. On the basis of this definition, we organize the insights of commentators into a process-structure map of the ethical territory that we hope will bring clarity to computer scientists and ethicists analyzing Fair AI while clearing some ground for further technical and philosophical work. (shrink)

Algorithms can now identify patterns and correlations in the (big) datasets, and predict outcomes based on those identified patterns and correlations with the use of machine learning techniques and big data, decisions can then be made by algorithms themselves in accordance with the predicted outcomes. Yet, algorithms can inherit questionable values from the datasets and acquire biases in the course of (machine) learning, and automated algorithmic decision-making makes it more difficult for people to see algorithms as biased. While researchers have (...) taken the problem of algorithmic bias seriously, but the current discussion on algorithmic fairness tends to conceptualize ‘fairness’ in algorithmic fairness primarily as a technical issue and attempts to implement pre-existing ideas of ‘fairness’ into algorithms. In this paper, I show that such a view of algorithmic fairness as technical issue is unsatisfactory for the type of problem algorithmic fairness presents. Since decisions on fairness measure and the related techniques for algorithms essentially involve choices between competing values, ‘fairness’ in algorithmic fairness should be conceptualized first and foremost as a political issue, and it should be (re)solved by democratic communication. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to explicitly reconceptualize algorithmic fairness as a political question and suggest the current discussion of algorithmic fairness can be strengthened by adopting the accountability for reasonableness framework. (shrink)

Self-driving cars currently face a lot of technological problems that need to be solved before the cars can be widely used. However, they also face ethical problems, among which the question of crash-optimization algorithms is most prominently discussed. Reviewing current debates about whether we should use the ethics of the Trolley Dilemma as a guide towards designing self-driving cars will provide us with insights about what exactly ethical research does. It will result in the view that although we need the (...) ethics of the Trolley Dilemma as important input for self-driving cars, the route towards simply implementing it into automated cars is blocked. (shrink)

AI systems have often been found to contain gender biases. As a result of these gender biases, AI routinely fails to adequately recognize the needs, rights, and accomplishments of women. In this article, we use Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition to argue that AI’s gender biases are not only an ethical problem because they can lead to discrimination, but also because they resemble forms of misrecognition that can hurt women’s self-development and self-worth. Furthermore, we argue that Honneth’s theory of recognition (...) offers a fruitful framework for improving our understanding of the psychological and normative implications of gender bias in modern technologies. Moreover, our Honnethian analysis of gender bias in AI shows that the goal of responsible AI requires us to address these issues not only through technical interventions, but also through a change in how we grant and deny recognition to each other. (shrink)

Though rapid collection of big data is ubiquitous across domains, from industry settings to academic contexts, the ethics of big data collection and research are contested. A nexus of data ethics issues is the concept of creep, or repurposing of data for other applications or research beyond the conditions of original collection. Data creep has proven controversial and has prompted concerns about the scope of ethical oversight. Institutional review boards offer little guidance regarding big data, and problematic research can still (...) meet ethical standards. While ethics seem concrete through institutional deployment, I frame ethics as produced. Informed by my ethnographic research at a large public university in the U.S., I explore ethics through two models: ethics as institutional procedures and ethics as acts and intentions. The university where I conducted fieldwork is the development grounds for a predictive model that uses student data to anticipate academic success. While students consent to data collection, the circumstances of consent and the degree to which they are informed are not so apparent, as many data are a product of creep. Drawing from interviews and participant observation with administrators, data scientists, developers, and students, I examine data ethics, from a larger institutional model to everyday enactments related to data creep. After demonstrating the limits of such models, I propose a remodeling of ethics that draws on recent works on data, justice, and refusal to pose generative questions for rethinking ethics in institutional contexts. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence has historically been conceptualized in anthropomorphic terms. Some algorithms deploy biomimetic designs in a deliberate attempt to effect a sort of digital isomorphism of the human brain. Others leverage more general learning strategies that happen to coincide with popular theories of cognitive science and social epistemology. In this paper, I challenge the anthropomorphic credentials of the neural network algorithm, whose similarities to human cognition I argue are vastly overstated and narrowly construed. I submit that three alternative supervised learning (...) methods—namely lasso penalties, bagging, and boosting—offer subtler, more interesting analogies to human reasoning as both an individual and a social phenomenon. Despite the temptation to fall back on anthropomorphic tropes when discussing AI, however, I conclude that such rhetoric is at best misleading and at worst downright dangerous. The impulse to humanize algorithms is an obstacle to properly conceptualizing the ethical challenges posed by emerging technologies. (shrink)

We propose a formal framework for interpretable machine learning. Combining elements from statistical learning, causal interventionism, and decision theory, we design an idealised explanation game in which players collaborate to find the best explanation for a given algorithmic prediction. Through an iterative procedure of questions and answers, the players establish a three-dimensional Pareto frontier that describes the optimal trade-offs between explanatory accuracy, simplicity, and relevance. Multiple rounds are played at different levels of abstraction, allowing the players to explore overlapping causal (...) patterns of variable granularity and scope. We characterise the conditions under which such a game is almost surely guaranteed to converge on a optimal explanation surface in polynomial time, and highlight obstacles that will tend to prevent the players from advancing beyond certain explanatory thresholds. The game serves a descriptive and a normative function, establishing a conceptual space in which to analyse and compare existing proposals, as well as design new and improved solutions. (shrink)

We propose a formal framework for interpretable machine learning. Combining elements from statistical learning, causal interventionism, and decision theory, we design an idealisedexplanation gamein which players collaborate to find the best explanation(s) for a given algorithmic prediction. Through an iterative procedure of questions and answers, the players establish a three-dimensional Pareto frontier that describes the optimal trade-offs between explanatory accuracy, simplicity, and relevance. Multiple rounds are played at different levels of abstraction, allowing the players to explore overlapping causal patterns of (...) variable granularity and scope. We characterise the conditions under which such a game is almost surely guaranteed to converge on a (conditionally) optimal explanation surface in polynomial time, and highlight obstacles that will tend to prevent the players from advancing beyond certain explanatory thresholds. The game serves a descriptive and a normative function, establishing a conceptual space in which to analyse and compare existing proposals, as well as design new and improved solutions. (shrink)

Unsupervised learning algorithms are widely used for many important statistical tasks with numerous applications in science and industry. Yet despite their prevalence, they have attracted remarkably little philosophical scrutiny to date. This stands in stark contrast to supervised and reinforcement learning algorithms, which have been widely studied and critically evaluated, often with an emphasis on ethical concerns. In this article, I analyze three canonical unsupervised learning problems: clustering, abstraction, and generative modeling. I argue that these methods raise unique epistemological and (...) ontological questions, providing data-driven tools for discovering natural kinds and distinguishing essence from contingency. This analysis goes some way toward filling the lacuna in contemporary philosophical discourse on unsupervised learning, as well as bringing conceptual unity to a heterogeneous field more often described by what it isnot(i.e., supervised or reinforcement learning) than by what itis. I submit that unsupervised learning is not just a legitimate subject of philosophical inquiry but perhaps the most fundamental branch of all AI. However, an uncritical overreliance on unsupervised methods poses major epistemic and ethical risks. I conclude by advocating for a pragmatic, error-statistical approach that embraces the opportunities and mitigates the challenges posed by this powerful class of algorithms. (shrink)

Background Advances in artificial intelligence, robotics and wearable computing are creating novel technological opportunities for mitigating the global burden of population ageing and improving the quality of care for older adults with dementia and/or age-related disability. Intelligent assistive technology is the umbrella term defining this ever-evolving spectrum of intelligent applications for the older and disabled population. However, the implementation of IATs has been observed to be sub-optimal due to a number of barriers in the translation of novel applications from the (...) designing labs to the bedside. Furthermore, since these technologies are designed to be used by vulnerable individuals with age- and multi-morbidity-related frailty and cognitive disability, they are perceived to raise important ethical challenges, especially when they involve machine intelligence, collect sensitive data or operate in close proximity to the human body. Thus, the goal of this paper is to explore and assess the ethical issues that professional stakeholders perceive in the development and use of IATs in elderly and dementia care. Methods We conducted a multi-site study involving semi-structured qualitative interviews with researchers and health professionals. We analyzed the interview data using a descriptive thematic analysis to inductively explore relevant ethical challenges. Results Our findings indicate that professional stakeholders find issues of patient autonomy and informed consent, quality of data management, distributive justice and human contact as ethical priorities. Divergences emerged in relation to how these ethical issues are interpreted, how conflicts between different ethical principles are resolved and what solutions should be implemented to overcome current challenges. Conclusions Our findings indicate a general agreement among professional stakeholders on the ethical promises and challenges raised by the use of IATs among older and disabled users. Yet, notable divergences persist regarding how these ethical challenges can be overcome and what strategies should be implemented for the safe and effective implementation of IATs. These findings provide technology developers with useful information about unmet ethical needs. Study results may guide policy makers with firsthand information from relevant stakeholders about possible solutions for ethically-aligned technology governance. (shrink)

Recommendation systems (RSs) predict what the user likes and recommend it to them. While at the onset of RSs, the latter was designed to maximize the recommendation accuracy (i.e., accuracy was their only goal), nowadays many RSs models include diversity in recommendations (which thus is a further goal of RSs). In the computer science community, the introduction of diversity in RSs is justified mainly through economic reasons: diversity increases user satisfaction and, in niche markets, profits.I contend that, first, the economic (...) justification of diversity in RSs risks reducing it to an empirical matter of preference; second, diversity is ethically relevant as it supports two autonomy rights of the user: the right to an open present and the right to be treated as an individual. So far, diversity in RSs has been morally defended only in the case of RSs of news and scholarly content: diversity is held to have a depolarizing effect in a democratic society and the scientific community and make the users more autonomous in their news choices. I provide a justification of diversity in RSs that embraces all kinds of RSs (i.e., a holistic moral defense) and is based on a normative principle founded on the agency of the user, which I call the right to be an exception to predictions. Such a right holds that the proper treatment of a RS user qua agent forbids providing them with recommendations based only on their past or similar users’ choices. (shrink)

There is increasing criticism on the use of big data and algorithms in public governance. Studies revealed that algorithms may reinforce existing biases and defy scrutiny by public officials using them and citizens subject to algorithmic decisions and services. In response, scholars have called for more algorithmic transparency and regulation. These are useful, but ex post solutions in which the development of algorithms remains a rather autonomous process. This paper argues that co-design of algorithms with relevant stakeholders from government and (...) society is another means to achieve responsible and accountable algorithms that is largely overlooked in the literature. We present a case study of the development of an algorithmic tool to estimate the populations of refugee camps to manage the delivery of emergency supplies. This case study demonstrates how in different stages of development of the tool—data selection and pre-processing, training of the algorithm and post-processing and adoption—inclusion of knowledge from the field led to changes to the algorithm. Co-design supported responsibility of the algorithm in the selection of big data sources and in preventing reinforcement of biases. It contributed to accountability of the algorithm by making the estimations transparent and explicable to its users. They were able to use the tool for fitting purposes and used their discretion in the interpretation of the results. It is yet unclear whether this eventually led to better servicing of refugee camps. (shrink)

As the capabilities of artificial intelligence systems improve, it becomes important to constrain their actions to ensure their behaviour remains beneficial to humanity. A variety of ethical, legal and safety-based frameworks have been proposed as a basis for designing these constraints. Despite their variations, these frameworks share the common characteristic that decision-making must consider multiple potentially conflicting factors. We demonstrate that these alignment frameworks can be represented as utility functions, but that the widely used Maximum Expected Utility paradigm provides insufficient (...) support for such multiobjective decision-making. We show that a Multiobjective Maximum Expected Utility paradigm based on the combination of vector utilities and non-linear action–selection can overcome many of the issues which limit MEU’s effectiveness in implementing aligned AI. We examine existing approaches to multiobjective AI, and identify how these can contribute to the development of human-aligned intelligent agents. (shrink)

Research on the ethics of algorithms has grown substantially over the past decade. Alongside the exponential development and application of machine learning algorithms, new ethical problems and solutions relating to their ubiquitous use in society have been proposed. This article builds on a review of the ethics of algorithms published in 2016, 2016). The goals are to contribute to the debate on the identification and analysis of the ethical implications of algorithms, to provide an updated analysis of epistemic and normative (...) concerns, and to offer actionable guidance for the governance of the design, development and deployment of algorithms. (shrink)

Research on the ethics of algorithms has grown substantially over the past decade. Alongside the exponential development and application of machine learning algorithms, new ethical problems and solutions relating to their ubiquitous use in society have been proposed. This article builds on a review of the ethics of algorithms published in 2016, 2016). The goals are to contribute to the debate on the identification and analysis of the ethical implications of algorithms, to provide an updated analysis of epistemic and normative (...) concerns, and to offer actionable guidance for the governance of the design, development and deployment of algorithms. (shrink)

Fairness is one of the most prominent values in the Ethics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) debate and, specifically, in the discussion on algorithmic decision-making (ADM). However, while the need for fairness in ADM is widely acknowledged, the very concept of fairness has not been sufficiently explored so far. Our paper aims to fill this gap and claims that an ethically informed re-definition of fairness is needed to adequately investigate fairness in ADM. To achieve our goal, after an introductory section aimed (...) at clarifying the aim and structure of the paper, in section “Fairness in algorithmic decision-making” we provide an overview of the state of the art of the discussion on fairness in ADM and show its shortcomings; in section “Fairness as an ethical value”, we pursue an ethical inquiry into the concept of fairness, drawing insights from accounts of fairness developed in moral philosophy, and define fairness as an ethical value. In particular, we argue that fairness is articulated in a distributive and socio-relational dimension; it comprises three main components: fair equality of opportunity, equal right to justification, and fair equality of relationship; these components are grounded in the need to respect persons both as persons and as particular individuals. In section “Fairness in algorithmic decision-making revised”, we analyze the implications of our redefinition of fairness as an ethical value on the discussion of fairness in ADM and show that each component of fairness has profound effects on the criteria that ADM ought to meet. Finally, in section “Concluding remarks”, we sketch some broader implications and conclude. (shrink)

Transparency is now a fundamental principle for data processing under the General Data Protection Regulation. We explore what this requirement entails for artificial intelligence and automated decision-making systems. We address the topic of transparency in artificial intelligence by integrating legal, social, and ethical aspects. We first investigate the ratio legis of the transparency requirement in the General Data Protection Regulation and its ethical underpinnings, showing its focus on the provision of information and explanation. We then discuss the pitfalls with respect (...) to this requirement by focusing on the significance of contextual and performative factors in the implementation of transparency. We show that human–computer interaction and human-robot interaction literature do not provide clear results with respect to the benefits of transparency for users of artificial intelligence technologies due to the impact of a wide range of contextual factors, including performative aspects. We conclude by integrating the information- and explanation-based approach to transparency with the critical contextual approach, proposing that transparency as required by the General Data Protection Regulation in itself may be insufficient to achieve the positive goals associated with transparency. Instead, we propose to understand transparency relationally, where information provision is conceptualized as communication between technology providers and users, and where assessments of trustworthiness based on contextual factors mediate the value of transparency communications. This relational concept of transparency points to future research directions for the study of transparency in artificial intelligence systems and should be taken into account in policymaking. (shrink)

The problem that I present in this paper concerns the issue of ethical evaluation of algorithms, especially those used in social media and which create profiles of users of these media and new technologies that have recently emerged and are intended to change the functioning of technologies used in data management. Systems such as Overton, SambaNova or Snorkel were created to help engineers create data management models, but they are based on different assumptions than the previous approach in machine learning (...) and deep learning. There is a need to analyze both deep learning algorithms and new technologies in database management in terms of their actions towards a person who leaves their digital footprints, on which these technologies work. Then, the possibilities of applying the existing deep learning technology and new Big Data systems in the economy will be shown. The opportunities offered by the systems mentioned above seem to be promising for many companies and—if implemented on a larger scale—they will affect the functioning of the free market. (shrink)

Technologies that deploy data science methods are liable to result in epistemic harms involving the diminution of individuals with respect to their standing as knowers or their credibility as sources of testimony. Not all harms of this kind are unjust but when they are we ought to try to prevent or correct them. Epistemically unjust harms will typically intersect with other more familiar and well-studied kinds of harm that result from the design, development, and use of data science technologies. However, (...) we argue that epistemic injustices can be distinguished conceptually from more familiar kinds of harm. We argue that epistemic harms are morally relevant even in cases where those who suffer them are unharmed in other ways. Via a series of examples from the criminal justice system, workplace hierarchies, and educational contexts we explain the kinds of epistemic injustice that can result from common uses of data science technologies. (shrink)

The concept of meaningful work has recently received increased attention in philosophy and other disciplines. However, the impact of the increasing robotization of the workplace on meaningful work has received very little attention so far. Doing work that is meaningful leads to higher job satisfaction and increased worker well-being, and some argue for a right to access to meaningful work. In this paper, we therefore address the impact of robotization on meaningful work. We do so by identifying five key aspects (...) of meaningful work: pursuing a purpose, social relationships, exercising skills and self-development, self-esteem and recognition, and autonomy. For each aspect, we analyze how the introduction of robots into the workplace may diminish or enhance the meaningfulness of work. We also identify a few ethical issues that emerge from our analysis. We conclude that robotization of the workplace can have both significant negative and positive effects on meaningful work. Our findings about ways in which robotization of the workplace can be a threat or opportunity for meaningful work can serve as the basis for ethical arguments for how to—and how not to—implement robots into workplaces. (shrink)

Due to the ongoing advancements in technology, socio-technical collaboration has become increasingly prevalent. This poses challenges in terms of governance and accountability, as well as issues in various other fields. Therefore, it is crucial to familiarize decision-makers and researchers with the core of human–machine collaboration. This study introduces a taxonomy that enables identification of the very nature of human–machine interaction. A literature review has revealed that automation and technical autonomy are main parameters for describing and understanding such interaction. Both aspects (...) must be carefully evaluated, as their increase has potentially far-reaching consequences. Hence, these two concepts comprise the taxonomy’s axes. Five levels of automation and five levels of technical autonomy are introduced below, based on the assumption that both automation and autonomy are gradual. The levels of automation were developed from existing approaches; those of autonomy were carefully derived from a review of the literature. The taxonomy’s use is also explained, as are its limitations and avenues for further research. (shrink)

A major challenge with the increasing use of Artificial Intelligence applications is to manage the long-term societal impacts of this technology. Two central concerns that have emerged in this respect are that the optimized goals behind the data processing of AI applications usually remain opaque and the energy footprint of their data processing is growing quickly. This study thus explores how much people value the transparency and environmental sustainability of AI using the example of personal AI assistants. The results from (...) a choice-based conjoint analysis with a sample of more than 1.000 respondents from Germany indicate that people hardly care about the energy efficiency of AI; and while they do value transparency through explainable AI, this added value of an application is offset by minor costs. The findings shed light on what kinds of AI people are likely to demand and have important implications for policy and regulation. (shrink)

In light of the recent emergence of predictive techniques in law enforcement to forecast crimes before they occur, this paper examines the temporal operation of power exercised by predictive policing algorithms. I argue that predictive policing exercises power through a paranoid style that constitutes a form of temporal governmentality. Temporality is especially pertinent to understanding what is ethically at stake in predictive policing as it is continuous with a historical racialized practice of organizing, managing, controlling, and stealing time. After first (...) clarifying the concept of temporal governmentality, I apply this lens to Chicago Police Department’s Strategic Subject List. This predictive algorithm operates, I argue, through a paranoid logic that aims to preempt future possibilities of crime on the basis of a criminal past codified in historical crime data. (shrink)

Firms increasingly deploy algorithmic pricing approaches to determine what to charge for their goods and services. Algorithmic pricing can discriminate prices both dynamically over time and personally depending on individual consumer information. Although legal, the ethicality of such approaches needs to be examined as often they trigger moral concerns and sometimes outrage. In this research paper, we provide an overview and discussion of the ethical challenges germane to algorithmic pricing. As a basis for our discussion, we perform a systematic interpretative (...) review of 315 related articles on dynamic and personalized pricing as well as pricing algorithms in general. We then use this review to define the term algorithmic pricing and map its key elements at the micro-, meso-, and macro levels from a business and marketing ethics perspective. Thus, we can identify morally ambivalent topics that call for deeper exploration by future research. (shrink)

Our contemporary condition is deeply infused with scientific-technological rationales. These influence and shape our ethical reasoning on war, including the moral status of civilians and the moral choices available to us. In this article, I discuss how technology shapes and directs the moral choices available to us by setting parameters for moral deliberation. I argue that technology has moral significance for just war thinking, yet this is often overlooked in attempts to assess who is liable to harm in war and (...) to what extent. This omission produces an undue deference to technological authority, reducing combatants, civilians and scenarios to data points. If we are to develop a maximally restrictive framework for harming civilians in war, which in my view should be a goal of just war thinking, then it is imperative that the scientific-technological dimension of contemporary war is given due attention. (shrink)

Mhealth technology is mushrooming world-wide and, in a variety of forms, reaches increasing numbers of users in ever-widening contexts and virtually independent from standard medical evidence assessment. Yet, debate on the broader societal impact including in particular mapping and classification of ethical issues raised has been limited. This article, as part of an ongoing empirically informed ethical research project, provides an overview of ethical issues of mhealth applications with a specific focus on implications on autonomy as a key notion in (...) the debate. A multi-stage model of references to the potential of mhealth use for strengthening some or other form of self-determination will be proposed as a descriptive tool. It illustrates an assumed continuum of enhanced autonomy via mhealth broadly conceived: from patient to user autonomy, to improved health literacy, and finally to the vision of supra-individual empowerment and democratised, participatory health and medicine as a whole. On closer examination, however, these references are frequently ambivalent or vague, perpetuating the at times uncritical use of established autonomy concepts in medical ethics. The article suggests zooming in on the range of autonomy-related aspects against the backdrop of digital innovation and datafied health more generally, and on this basis add to existing frameworks for the ethical evaluation of mhealth more specifically. (shrink)

Healthcare provision, like many other sectors of society, is undergoing major changes due to the increased use of data-driven methods and technologies. This increased reliance on big data in medicine can lead to shifts in the norms that guide healthcare providers and patients. Continuous critical normative reflection is called for to track such potential changes. This article presents the results of an interview-based study with 20 German and Swiss experts from the fields of medicine, life science research, informatics and humanities (...) of digitalisation. The aim of the study was to explore expert opinions regarding current challenges and opportunities related to data-driven medicine and medical research and to provide a methodological framework for empirically grounded, continuous normative reflection. To this end, we developed a heuristic tool to map and structure empirical findings for normative analysis. Using this tool, our interview material points to a polarisation between individualistic and collectivistic orientated argumentations among experts. The study shows that a multilevel analysis is required to deal with complex normative implications of data-driven approaches in medical research and healthcare. (shrink)

The notion of “responsibility gap” with artificial intelligence (AI) was originally introduced in the philosophical debate to indicate the concern that “learning automata” may make more difficult or impossible to attribute moral culpability to persons for untoward events. Building on literature in moral and legal philosophy, and ethics of technology, the paper proposes a broader and more comprehensive analysis of the responsibility gap. The responsibility gap, it is argued, is not one problem but a set of at least four interconnected (...) problems – gaps in culpability, moral and public accountability, active responsibility—caused by different sources, some technical, other organisational, legal, ethical, and societal. Responsibility gaps may also happen with non-learning systems. The paper clarifies which aspect of AI may cause which gap in which form of responsibility, and why each of these gaps matter. It proposes a critical review of partial and non-satisfactory attempts to address the responsibility gap: those which present it as a new and intractable problem (“fatalism”), those which dismiss it as a false problem (“deflationism”), and those which reduce it to only one of its dimensions or sources and/or present it as a problem that can be solved by simply introducing new technical and/or legal tools (“solutionism”). The paper also outlines a more comprehensive approach to address the responsibility gaps with AI in their entirety, based on the idea of designing socio-technical systems for “meaningful human control", that is systems aligned with the relevant human reasons and capacities. (shrink)

BackgroundMachine learning-based clinical decision support systems (ML_CDSS) are increasingly employed in various sectors of health care aiming at supporting clinicians’ practice by matching the characteristics of individual patients with a computerised clinical knowledge base. Some studies even indicate that ML_CDSS may surpass physicians’ competencies regarding specific isolated tasks. From an ethical perspective, however, the usage of ML_CDSS in medical practice touches on a range of fundamental normative issues. This article aims to add to the ethical discussion by using professionalisation theory (...) as an analytical lens for investigating how medical action at the micro level and the physician–patient relationship might be affected by the employment of ML_CDSS.Main textProfessionalisation theory, as a distinct sociological framework, provides an elaborated account of what constitutes client-related professional action, such as medical action, at its core and why it is more than pure expertise-based action. Professionalisation theory is introduced by presenting five general structural features of professionalised medical practice: (i) the patient has a concern; (ii) the physician deals with the patient’s concern; (iii) s/he gives assistance without patronising; (iv) s/he regards the patient in a holistic manner without building up a private relationship; and (v) s/he applies her/his general expertise to the particularities of the individual case. Each of these five key aspects are then analysed regarding the usage of ML_CDSS, thereby integrating the perspectives of professionalisation theory and medical ethics.ConclusionsUsing ML_CDSS in medical practice requires the physician to pay special attention to those facts of the individual case that cannot be comprehensively considered by ML_CDSS, for example, the patient’s personality, life situation or cultural background. Moreover, the more routinized the use of ML_CDSS becomes in clinical practice, the more that physicians need to focus on the patient’s concern and strengthen patient autonomy, for instance, by adequately integrating digital decision support in shared decision-making. (shrink)