International Conference on Computer Ethics
The CEPE conference series is recognized as one of the premier international events on computer and information ethics attended by delegates from all over the world. Conferences are held about every 24 months, alternating between Europe and the United States. INSEIT is the main organizer/sponsor of the CEPE series. The 2023 CEPE was the International Conference on Computer Ethics: Philosophical Enquiry 2023, hosted by Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, IL.
A five-step ethical decision-making model for self-driving vehicles: Which (ethical) theories could guide the process and what values need further investigation?
By choosing a specific trajectory (especially in accident situations), self-driving vehicles (SDVs) will implicitly distribute risks among traffic participants and induce the determination of traffic victims. Acknowledging the normative significance of SDVs’ programming, policymakers and scholars have conceptualized what constitutes ethical decision-making for SDVs. Based on these insights and requirements formulated in contemporary literature and policy drafts, this article proposes a five-step ethical decision model for SDVs during hazardous situations. In particular, this model states a clear sequence of steps, indicates the guiding (ethical) theories that inform each step, and points out a list of values that need further investigation. This model, although not exhaustive and resolute, aims to contribute to the scholarly debate on computational ethics (especially in the field of autonomous driving) and serves practitioners in the automotive sector by providing a decision-making process for SDVs during hazard situations that approximates compliance with ethical theories, shared principles and policymakers’ demands. In the future, assessing the actual impact, effectiveness and admissibility of implementing the here sketched theories, values and process requires an empirical evaluation and testing of the overall decision-making model.
Copyright (c) 2023 International Conference on Computer Ethics
Smart Machines and Wise Guys: Can Intelligent Machines be Wise?
Intercultural Information Ethics Applied To The Data Colonialism Concept
There is a universalized and socially accepted view of order and totality focused on the processing of personal data, categorizing subjects and configuring criticism in a European view that sustains the dynamics of modernity, giving rise to what is called Data Colonialism. This paper explores the relationship between Data Colonialism and Intercultural Information Ethics - IIE, focusing on whether these concepts are connected. The study argued that just as industrial capitalism transformed society by commodifying labor, data capitalism is changing society by commodifying human life through collecting, controlling, and exploiting personal data. This practice contributes to class division and digital colonialism, where digital territories become sites of extraction and exploitation. Data Colonialism and IIE both address issues of informational justice in diverse cultural contexts. IIE can provide insights into analyzing these relationships from the perspective of local cultures on privacy, informed consent, and information sharing, which differ greatly between different cultures. IIE understand and respect different cultural perspectives on information, while Data Colonialism refers to companies and governments exploiting personal data without consent and reproducing colonial power relations. An intercultural ethical approach to information can help analyze the effects of data colonialism and promote justice and equity in different cultural contexts. By recognizing these colonization processes in the digital age, in which there are ethical implications in relation to the transit of information and cultural differences, we propose to think about this complex network from the Intercultural Ethics of Information.
This paper argues Moral Turing Test (MTT) developed by Allen et al. for evaluating morality in AI systems is designed inaptly. Different versions of the MTT focus on the conversational ability of an agent but not the performance of morally significant actions. Arnold and Scheutz also argue against the MTT and state that without focusing on the performance of morally significant actions, the MTT is insufficient. Morality is mainly about morally relevant actions because it does not matter how good a person is at conversing about morally relevant actions. When discussing morality, we consider an agent’s ability to perform specific actions in a morally given situation. We show that Allen et al. do not take into account the distinction between the performance of the moral attribution and the performance of the morally relevant action. This distinction gives a robust account of assessing the morality of an AI system in the MTT.
Acceleration AI Ethics and the Debate between Stability AI’s Diffusion and OpenAI’s Dall-E
One objection to conventional AI ethics is that it slows innovation. This presentation responds by reconfiguring ethics as an innovation accelerator. The critical elements develop from a contrast between Stability AI’s Diffusion and OpenAI’s Dall-E. By analyzing the divergent values underlying their opposed strategies for development and deployment, five conceptions are identified as common to acceleration ethics. Uncertainty is understood as positive and encouraging, rather than discouraging. Innovation is conceived as intrinsically valuable, instead of worthwhile only as mediated by social effects. AI problems are solved by more AI, not less. Permissions and restrictions governing AI emerge from a decentralized process, instead of a unified authority. The work of ethics is embedded in AI development and application, instead of functioning from outside. Together, these attitudes and practices remake ethics as provoking rather than restraining artificial intelligence.
Humanity Compatible: Aligning Autonomous AI with Kantian Respect for Humanity
Do we have Procreative Obligations to AI Superbeneficiaries?
This paper concerns itself primarily with questions about our obligations to AI superbeneficiaries – entities with inherently valuable interests that exceed those of humans in terms of quality and/or quantity. Specifically, this paper deals with questions about whether we have any obligations to bring AI superbeneficiaries into existence, especially if it turns out that human well-being might very well be at stake. I employs an anti-natalist argument to establish that we have all-things-considered moral obligations against bringing AI superbeneficiaries into existence because of the existential risk they pose to their own survival as well as to the survival of humanity.
Improving AI-mediated Hate Speech Detection: A Genuine Ethical Dilemma
AI-mediated hate speech detection is indispensable for contemporary communication platforms. But it has known deficiencies in terms of bias and context-awareness. I argue that improving on these known deficiencies leads into a genuine ethical dilemma: It will increase the epistemic and social utility of these platforms, while also helping bad faith political and corporate actors to suppress unwelcome speech more swiftly and efficiently.
Ex-post Approaches to Privacy: Trust Norms to Realize the Social Dimension of Privacy
Toward Substantive Models of Rational Agency in the Design of Autonomous AI
Overtrust in Algorithms: An online behavioral study on trust and reliance in AI advice
People’s Perception and Expectation of Moral Settings in Autonomous Vehicles: An Australian Case
While Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) can handle the majority of driving situations with relative ease, it is indeed challenging to design a system whose safety performance will fit every situation. Technology errors, misaligned sensors, malicious actors and bad weather can all contribute to imminent collisions. If we assume that the wide-spread use and adoption of AVs is a necessary condition of the many societal benefits that these vehicles have promised to offer, then it is quite clear that any reasonable ethics policy should also consider the various user expectations with which they interact, and the larger societies in which they are implemented. In this paper we aim to evaluate Australian’s perception and expectation on personal AVs relating to various ethical settings. We do this using a survey questionnaire, where the participants are shown 6 dilemma situations involving an AV, and are asked to decide which outcome is the most acceptable to them. We have designed the survey questions with consideration for previous research and have excluded any selection criteria which we believed were biased or redundant in nature. We enhanced our questionnaire by informing participants about the legal implications of each crash scenario. We also provided participants with a randomised choice which we named an Objective Decision System (ODS). If selected, the AV would consider all possible outcomes for a given crash scenario and choose one at random. The randomised decision is non-weighted, which means that all possible outcomes are treated equally. We will use the survey analysis, to list and prioritise Australian’s preferences on personal AVs when dealing with an ethical dilemma, that can help manufacturers in programming and governments in developing AV policies. Finally, we make some recommendations for further researchers as we believe such questionnaires can help arouse people’s curiosity in the various ways that an AV could be programmed to deal with a dilemma situation and would encourage AV adoption.
Where Law and Ethics Meet: A Systematic Review of Ethics Guidelines and Proposed Legal Frameworks on AI
Over the past few years, artificial intelligence has fueled a revolution in several scientific fields. Intelligent agents can now give medical advice, translate spoken language, recommend news, and drive different types of vehicles, to name but a few. Some of these agents need to interact with humans and, hence, need to adhere to their social norms. Safety engineers have always worked with critical systems in which catastrophic failures can occur. They need to make ethical decisions in order to keep the system under some acceptable risk level. In this paper, we will propose an approach to give a value to contrary-to-duty behaviors by introducing a risk aversion factor. We will make use of decision theory with uncertain consequences together with a risk matrix used by safety engineers. We will successfully exemplify this approach with the problem in which an autonomous car needs to decide whether to run a red light or not.
Deepfakes, Public Announcements, and Political Mobilization
Theoretical Underpinnings of Virtual Reality: From Second Life to Meta
Since Facebook’s transition and rebranding to ‘Meta’ in October 2021, there is a renewed academic and societal interest in the notions of ‘metaverse,’ ‘virtual reality’ (VR), and ‘virtuality’ (see e.g., Novak, 2022; Gent, 2022). This renewed interest reminds of the debates around the three-dimensional social virtual worlds like Second Life in 2007. This paper has a two-fold conceptual aim. First, it presents a critical synthesis of how late-twentieth and twenty-first-century philosophers and media theorists have conceptualised virtuality and its relation to reality, in the context of VR. The analysis carefully distinguishes seven theories. The second part focuses on a comparison (similarities and dissimilarities) between Second Life and Meta. The starting points are four conceptualisations of virtuality: an ontological, a phenomenological (in terms of subjective embodied experience), a cultural, and a technological conceptualisation (e.g., VR; augmented reality). Ultimately, both aims and parts seek to contribute to a better and more nuanced understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of the current academic and societal discussions about Meta.
Data After Death: Remembrance and Resurrection
Registering AI-generated Patents: A Revolution in Distributive Justice?
Understanding Freedom in the Age of Machines: What Does It Mean to Be Digitally Free?
The 21st century has ushered in a spate of disruptive digital technologies that are enabling us to exercise our freedoms in new ways. But with these new freedoms come new challenges, new ways in which these technologies are actually making us unfree, and we still don’t have a full picture of what that means. So how are we to engage with these technologies in the meantime? I will not suggest that we get rid of them, but I will explore the idea that we can exercise our freedoms not only by using these technologies but also by choosing not to use them. But that in turn raises a new question, namely: What exactly is this negative freedom from digital technologies, and how plausibly can we exercise it? In exploring this question, I consider the language of rights that has been used to articulate this negative freedom—with a focus on the rights set forth in data-protection, labour, and administrative law—suggesting that while these rights are far from the perfect tool for exercising our freedom from digital technologies, they nonetheless can go a long way toward that end.
Digital Transformations of Democracy: Requirements for Successful Problem Solving in the Age of Anthropocene
MIIND and HEART: Measuring and designing for thicker qualities of user experience
In this paper, we discuss our interdisciplinary approach to developing a new framework for evaluating how design elements of digital technologies interact with joy in user experience. We explain why this framework is needed, given a distinction between thin and thick engagement in user experience. We elaborate on our framework in light of four case studies we conducted or supervised, showing how cognitive and normative elements of user experience might be better engaged with in UX frameworks, and in the design and use of technology more generally.
The Normative Side of Building Friendship with AI Companions
Rebalancing the digital convenience equation through narrative imagination
Causes and Reasons – Decisions, Responsibility, and Trust in Techno-Social Interactions
The interaction between humans and AI creates a new type of interaction that goes beyond subject object relations. AI technologies cannot always be described as a conventional object due to its activity capabilities and the black box aspect. An additional category is created, which is outlined by the ‘sobject approach’. This creates the opportunity to study the human-like characteristics of the interaction on the part of the AI. The ‘social’ possibilities of AI can thus be focused by referring to ‘techno-social’ rather than ‘social’ interactions, since the possibilities are different from the human sociality but exist in the human-social lifeworld. If an AI is a techno-social interaction partner, it can ‘act’ and make ‘decisions’. The additional category can therefore be used to investigate what types of decisions there are, if they are based on ‘reasons or causes’, whether they can be ‘trusted’, and if one can assign or delegate ‘responsibility’ to such technology. Thus, classical ethical questions regarding subjective categories like decision-making, trust, and trustworthiness, and responsibility can be rethought for somewhat human-like but not human technologies like AI.
An Examination of Doctors’ Attitude Toward Medical AI: Turkey Sample
War or Peace Between Humanity and Artificial Intelligence
Social Media Algorithms and Social Distrust
Responsibility Before Freedom: closing the responsibility gaps for autonomous machines
The introduction of autonomous machines (AMs) in human domains has raised challenging questions about the attribution of responsibility; referred to as the responsibility gap. In this paper, we address the gap by positing that entities cannot be granted the freedom of action unless they can also recognise the same right for others—and be subject to blame or punishment in cases of undermining the rights of others. Since AMs fail to meet this criterion, the users who utilize an AM to pursue their goals can instead grant the machine their (the user’s) right to act autonomously on their behalf. Thus, an AM’s right to act freely hinges on the user’s duty to recognise others’ right to be free. Since responsibility is attributed before an entity is given the freedom to act, the responsibility gap only arises when we ignore the fact that AMs have no right of acting freely on their own. We also discuss some attractive features of the approach, address some potential objections, and compare our theory to existing proposals. We conclude by arguing that holding users responsible for the behaviour of AMs promotes a responsible use of AI while it indirectly motivates companies to make safer machines.
A Labor History of Health Records: On Medical Scribes and the Ethics of Automation
This paper explores the human labor demands that underpin the utility of patient health records. I examine where these labor demands originated historically, and I consider how they might evolve, given the recent rise of artificial intelligence (AI) being developed to automate the collection and categorization of patient health information. Using a sociotechnical framework, the paper identifies a complicated paradox: the labor of medical scribes has become crucial for the benefits of electronic health records (EHR) to be realized; simultaneously, scribe work has been regarded in medical literature as inconspicuous and transitory, a stopgap measure wholly replaceable by a more efficient solution. The paper thus critically interrogates the premise that automation can replicate and replace scribe labor, and it examines the ethics of moving toward a fuller reliance on AI.
Framing Effects in the Operationalization of Differential Privacy Systems as Code-Driven Law