Michael Anderson and Susan Leigh Anderson
This paper aims to propose a paradigm of case-supported principle-based behavior (CPB) to help ensure ethical behavior of autonomous machines. The requirements, methods…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to propose a paradigm of case-supported principle-based behavior (CPB) to help ensure ethical behavior of autonomous machines. The requirements, methods, implementation and evaluation components of the CPB paradigm are detailed.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors argue that ethically significant behavior of autonomous systems can be guided by explicit ethical principles abstracted from a consensus of ethicists. Particular cases of ethical dilemmas where ethicists agree on the ethically relevant features and the right course of action are used to help discover principles needed for ethical guidance of the behavior of autonomous systems.
Findings
Such a consensus, along with its corresponding principle, is likely to emerge in many areas in which autonomous systems are apt to be deployed and for the actions they are liable to undertake, as we are more likely to agree on how machines ought to treat us than on how human beings ought to treat one another.
Practical implications
Principles are comprehensive and comprehensible declarative abstractions that succinctly represent this consensus in a centralized, extensible and auditable way. Systems guided by such principles are likely to behave in a more acceptably ethical manner, permitting a richer set of behaviors in a wider range of domains than systems not so guided, and will exhibit the ability to defend this behavior with pointed logical explanations.
Social implications
A new threshold has been reached where machines are being asked to make decisions that can have an ethically relevant impact on human beings. It can be argued that such machine ethics ought to be the driving force in determining the manner and extent to which autonomous systems should be permitted to interact with them.
Originality/value
Developing and employing principles for this use is a complex process, and new tools and methodologies will be needed by engineers to help contend with this complexity. The authors offer the CPB paradigm as an abstraction to help mitigate this complexity.
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My early life was punctuated by turning points and transformations that gradually led to a surprising and late-blooming academic career – my first “real” sociology position began…
Abstract
My early life was punctuated by turning points and transformations that gradually led to a surprising and late-blooming academic career – my first “real” sociology position began when I was 44. Here I trace six different trajectories of scholarly work which have compelled me: feminist women's health and technoscience studies; social worlds/arenas and the disciplinary emergence of reproductive sciences; the sociology of work and scientific practices; biomedicalization studies; grounded theory and situational analysis as qualitative research methods; and symbolic interaction-ists and -isms. I have circled back across them multiple times. Instead of seeing a beautifully folded origami of a life, it feels more like a crumpled wad of newspapers from various times. Upon opening and holding them up to the light in different ways, stories may be slowly discerned. I try to capture here some of the sweetness and fragility of these moments toward the end of an initially stuttering but later wondrously gratifying career.
The International Network of Research Management Societies (INORMS) celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2021. It was established to increase communication among research management…
Abstract
The International Network of Research Management Societies (INORMS) celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2021. It was established to increase communication among research management societies. The need for a formal international research management community developed because there was (1) increased international funding of research, (2) the number of international research collaborations was growing, and (3) there was a need to understand research regulations in other countries. INORMS sought to address these issues through international congresses and by providing a forum for member societies to work more closely together on common issues. Membership in INORMS steadily increased over the years. The 20th anniversary meeting was highlighted with the signing of the Hiroshima Statement that described a research manager’s principles and responsibilities, which include collegiality, inclusiveness, professionalisation, innovation, and accountability. This chapter summarises the factors that led to the formation of INORMS and its history.
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The main aim of the paper is to show the necessary convergence of two promising but under‐explored research fields, intellectics and inventics, into a new one, that of…
Abstract
Purpose
The main aim of the paper is to show the necessary convergence of two promising but under‐explored research fields, intellectics and inventics, into a new one, that of intellectual invention, and to discuss new ways of thinking which can be efficient in building an invention culture.
Design/methodology/approach
These purposes are achieved in an interdisciplinary way, in which the various scientific approaches are governed by a philosophical perspective that ensures the conceptual level and the unity of the discourse. The philosophical approach itself is practised in several specific fields and at various levels, being used in order to lay the foundations of a new domain of research. Specific theoretical problems are elucidated through concrete examples furnished by sciences and discussed from the perspective of inventics. Graphical representations help in giving a systemic and integrative perception of complex issues.
Findings
The paper defines in a comprehensive way the two partially studied and till now separately conceived research fields; delimitates and characterizes a new domain of study, of crucial theoretical and practical interest; analyses some types of intellectual techniques involved in all sorts of inventive activity; identifies the main new ways of thinking encouraged by the information technologies and shows their forms and manifestations, as well as the new values promoted by their development. There are proposed some improvements on sociological thinking from the perspective of inventive thinking. The emergence of an invention ethics is anticipated as a necessary component of an invention culture.
Originality/value
Proposes a new field of research, that of the intellectual invention, analyses the main instruments of its study and development, and uses the results of different sciences in order to lay the philosophical foundations of invention ethics as part of the future invention culture.
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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the underlying meanings, effects and cultural patterns of metadata standards, focusing on Dublin Core (DC), and explore the ways in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the underlying meanings, effects and cultural patterns of metadata standards, focusing on Dublin Core (DC), and explore the ways in which anticolonial metadata tools can be applied to exercise and promote Indigenous data sovereignty.
Design/methodology/approach
Applying an anticolonial approach, this paper examines the assumptions underpinning the stated roles of two of DC’s metadata elements, rights and creator. Based on that examination, the paper considers the limitations of DC for appropriately documenting Indigenous traditional knowledge (TK). Introduction of the TK labels and their implementation are put forward as an alternative method to such limitations in metadata standards.
Findings
The analysis of the rights and creator elements revealed that DC’s universality and supposed neutrality threaten the rightful attribution, specificity and dynamism of TK, undermining Indigenous data sovereignty. The paper advocates for alternative descriptive methods grounded within tribal sovereignty values while recognizing the difficulties of dealing with issues of interoperability by means of metadata standards given potentially innate tendencies to customization within communities.
Originality/value
This is the first paper to directly examine the implications of DC’s rights and creator elements for documenting TK. The paper identifies ethical practices and culturally appropriate tools that unsettle the universality claims of metadata standards. By introducing the TK labels, the paper contributes to the efforts of Indigenous communities to regain control and ownership of their cultural and intellectual property.
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For many years, science fiction has been perceived as “rayguns and rocket ships” boys' literature. Any number of impressionistic and statistical studies have identified the…
Abstract
For many years, science fiction has been perceived as “rayguns and rocket ships” boys' literature. Any number of impressionistic and statistical studies have identified the typical SF reader as male, between the ages of twelve and twenty and, in the case of adults, employed in some technical field. Yet I continually find myself having conversations with women, only to find that they, like myself, began reading science fiction between the ages of six and ten, have been reading it voraciously ever since, and were often frustrated at the absence of satisfying female characters and the presence of misogynistic elements in what they read. The stereotype of the male reader and the generally male SF environment mask both the increasing presence of women writers in the field of science fiction and the existence of a feminist dialog within some SF novels. This dialog had its beginnings in the mid‐sixties and is still going strong. It is the hope of the feminist SF community that this effacement can be counteracted.
Life studies are a rich source for further research on the role of the Afro‐American woman in society. They are especially useful to gain a better understanding of the…
Abstract
Life studies are a rich source for further research on the role of the Afro‐American woman in society. They are especially useful to gain a better understanding of the Afro‐American experience and to show the joys, sorrows, needs, and ideals of the Afro‐American woman as she struggles from day to day.
Few issues in recent times have so provoked debate and dissention within the library field as has the concept of fees for user services. The issue has aroused the passions of our…
Abstract
Few issues in recent times have so provoked debate and dissention within the library field as has the concept of fees for user services. The issue has aroused the passions of our profession precisely because its roots and implications extend far beyond the confines of just one service discipline. Its reflection is mirrored in national debates about the proper spheres of the public and private sectors—in matters of information generation and distribution, certainly, but in a host of other social ramifications as well, amounting virtually to a debate about the most basic values which we have long assumed to constitute the very framework of our democratic and humanistic society.