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Pages 14-28

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From page 15...
... Insights and frameworks from the social sciences thus play key roles in understanding the nature of responsible computing research, and mechanisms to ensure it. Chapter 2 elaborates on these points and provides conceptual frameworks for considering ethical and societal issues related to computing research.
From page 17...
... Subsequent scholarship emphasized that technologies, including computing technologies, should not be viewed as value neutral. Also observed decades ago were ways computing technology differed from prior technology revolutions.
From page 18...
... Computing technology's spread has raised new issues and spurred growing recog nition of the ethical and societal impacts that arise from computing research and tech nologies. One manifestation of this change is that universities are exploring new ways of incorporating ethics into computing courses and curricula.12 Another is that civil society organizations, other outside observers, and even former employees are calling attention to value trade-offs being made by industry that they characterize as harmful to society.
From page 19...
... There are many ways that computing researchers can take into account the broader context: • Sufficiently deep grounding in the intended application domains. Where computing research is concerned with use in a particular application or con text, for example, in such sectors as health care, education, or transportation, computing research will benefit from researchers at a minimum engaging with experts in that application area and potentially including such experts as part of the research team.
From page 20...
... Some responsibilities rest with research ers; for example, in how they scope and structure projects, the diversity of perspective 20 FOSTERING RESPONSIBLE COMPUTING RESEARCH
From page 21...
... Because there is little empirical data on the effectiveness of any approaches to responsible computing research, these recommendations have been developed primarily by considering leverage points in the research ecosystem, early efforts that appear promising, and expertise provided by social scientists and ethicists who served on the study committee and made presentations to the committee. Several recommendations also address the need for empirical evaluation and possible adaptation or revision of some recommendations based on experience implementing them.
From page 23...
... The social and behavioral sciences provide methods for identifying the morally relevant actors, environments, and interactions in a sociotechnical system; ethical reasoning provides a calculus for understanding how to resolve competing moral tensions involving those actors, environments, and interactions. The theoretical foundations presented in this chapter can thus support the computing research community in identifying and making informed decisions about ethical and societal impact challenges that arise in 23
From page 24...
... In particular, schol ars with expertise in these areas can assist computing researchers in designing research projects that adequately meet societal constraints, norms, and needs. To address the ethical and societal impact challenges discussed in this chapter, computing researchers need to be able to envision alternative ethical values and trade offs among them as well as alternative socio-technical contexts.
From page 25...
... In addition to determining whether an act is wrong, ethical evaluation also requires determining why the act is wrong and how seriously wrong it is. This further evaluation requires examination of values that are put into play by the computing researchers' decisions, and determination of the extent to which their decisions undermine (or serve)
From page 26...
... One useful contribution of moral theories is to provide a shorthand for thinking about those values and their structure. So, this report adopts a pragmatic distinction to facilitate ethical analysis of responsible computing research: the distinction between intrinsic and instrumental values.6 Intrinsic values are things that matter in themselves.
From page 27...
... shared intrinsic values and illustrating how they are served by instrumental values specific to computing, this report offers computing researchers concepts with which to structure and understand both their own moral intuitions, and the inevitable 7 One approach to addressing ethical questions in computing research would be to rely almost exclusively on ideas of rights, perhaps rooted in domestic or international law. At least in principle, for example, virtually all countries in the world accept the idea of human rights.


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