CS474: Human Computer Interaction - Ethical Considerations
Activity Goals
The goals of this activity are:- To critically evaluate the potential unforseen ethical consequences of HCI systems
Supplemental Reading
Feel free to visit these resources for supplemental background reading material.- What Ethics Should Guide the Use of Robots in Policing?
- A Code of Ethics for the Human-Robot Interaction Profession
- How Robot Carers could be the Future for Lonely Elderly People
- The US Military Is Working on Tech That Could Turn Soldiers Into Cyborgs
- Reference Man - Everything is designed for this man, even drugs
- About the Paper that Forced Timnit Gerbu out of Google
- Microsoft AI Principles
- A Health Care Algorithm Offered Less Care to Black Patients
- Dissecting racial bias in an algorithm used to manage the health of populations
- Ackerman, E. - My Fight With a Sidewalk Robot
- Gonzales-Cameron, A. - Hello, My Name is Error
- Toward a Sociology of Artificial Intelligence: A Call for Research on Inequalities and Structural Change
The Activity
Directions
Consider the activity models and answer the questions provided. First reflect on these questions on your own briefly, before discussing and comparing your thoughts with your group. Appoint one member of your group to discuss your findings with the class, and the rest of the group should help that member prepare their response. Answer each question individually from the activity, and compare with your group to prepare for our whole-class discussion. After class, think about the questions in the reflective prompt and respond to those individually in your notebook. Report out on areas of disagreement or items for which you and your group identified alternative approaches. Write down and report out questions you encountered along the way for group discussion.Model 1: Ethical Considerations and Diversity and Inclusivity
Now might be a good time to remind everyone that the easiest way to discriminate is to make stringent rules, then to decide when and for whom to enforce them.
— Nicolas Le Roux (@le_roux_nicolas) December 3, 2020
My submissions were always checked for disclosure of sensitive material, never for the quality of the literature review.
Questions
- What are the risks inherent in robotic policing or defense systems?
- How do we balance dignity and privacy in applications such as aging-in-place with supportive care systems?
- What is a "Turing Deception" with respect to "Wizard-of-Oz" robotics?
- Why are people reluctant to raise issues of implicit bias or lack of autonomy in already-deployed systems? When is the correct time to collect this kind of feedback, and how can the participating subjects be protected?
- Two of these articles discuss a racial bias in health care applications and, in particular, a health care application that recommended less care to black patients. How does this kind of bias wind up in software systems; why doesn't software reduce unconscious bias, given that it lacks consciousness?
- What constraints would you introduce to validate a name input box to mitigate possible SQL injection attacks? Why is this dangerous for inclusivity, and what can be done about it?
Explore Further
These curated resources support deeper ethical analysis of interactive systems:
- ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct — the professional code you are implicitly agreeing to as a computing professional. Note how many principles (avoid harm, be honest, respect privacy) map directly onto interface design decisions.
- MIT Moral Machine — an interactive experiment where you judge moral dilemmas faced by autonomous vehicles. Try a session and notice how quickly “obvious” ethical intuitions conflict — then consider who gets to encode the tie-breaker in software.
- Markkula Center - Ethics in Technology Practice — a free toolkit of ethical frameworks and case-analysis worksheets designed for working technologists; the “Framework for Ethical Decision Making” is a useful scaffold for the Ethical Case Studies assignment.
- Center for Humane Technology — founded by former tech insiders (including Tristan Harris, from our readings); pairs documented harms of persuasive technology with concrete design alternatives.