Worries about "bad" downstream interpretations or applications of research are not new. It has always been the case that someone could use research findings for bad ends, intentionally or not. So why worry about downstream harms with AI research? Isn’t this just AI research exceptionalism? Read more
When we talk about AI research, we are mainly talking about research that seeks to develop tools that will replace human decision-making. The development of AI typically involves the collection and use of huge amounts of data to train an algorithm to make decisions or predictions within some domain. While there may be risks to people whose data are included in the large data sets used to train algorithms, the most salient and serious risk of harm in AI research is to those on whom the AI is applied in the real world. Read more
In the wake of the controversy over the Surfactant, Positive Pressure, and Oxygenation Randomized Trial (SUPPORT), a team of bioethicists set out to answer two main questions raised by the controversy: (1) “what do people think about the risks and benefits of research on medical practices?,” and (2) “what do people think about different approaches to informing patients that this type of research is being conducted?” Their research, the Research on Medical Practices Ethics Study, examined the views of the general population regarding research on medical practices through a series [...] Read more
