AI, Research Ethics, and Guidelines
Ongoing developments in AI seem to keep changing the ethical face of research. The changes are rapid and unpredictable, affecting practices concerning everything from empirical investigations to student grading, from academic authorship to the writing of proposals. In addition, more speculative background questions raise worries about whether or how AI-related changes will also affect us more deeply as humans.
Developing the research ethics of AI in a constructive way is important. Research ethical principles do not change with every new technological innovation or development, however. The question is rather how to apply the (still valid) principles in new concrete situations.
A related issue is what sort of resource might be deemed optimal for the job. Many considerations go into articulating research ethical principles on the level of guidelines, and NENT (The National Committee for Research Ethics in Science and Technology) is now in the final stages of revising its domain specific guidelines for science and technology.
In this talk, I will address in turn the issues mentioned – the research ethics of AI, the notion of research ethical principles, and the question of guidelines when it comes to the broad set of issues ongoing AI developments are presenting us with.