Dowdeswell, Tracey L.

In the midst of the fourth industrial revolution, big data is weighed in gold, placing enormous power in the hands of data scientists – the modern AI alchemists. But great power comes with greater responsibility. This book seeks to shape, in a practical, diverse, and inclusive way, the ethical compass of those entrusted with big data. Being practical, this book provides seven real-world case studies dealing with big data abuse. These cases span a range of topics from the statistical manipulation of research in the Cornell food lab through the Facebook user data abuse done by Cambridge Analytica to the abuse of farm animals by AI in a chapter co-authored by renowned philosophers Peter Singer and Yip Fai Tse. Diverse and inclusive, given the global nature of this revolution, this book provides case-by-case commentary on the cases by scholars representing non-Western ethical approaches (Buddhist, Jewish, Indigenous, and African) as well as Western approaches (consequentialism, deontology, and virtue). We hope this book will be a lighthouse for those debating ethical dilemmas in this challenging and ever-evolving field.

This paper will first describe some of the unique features of blockchain technology and ‘smart contracts’ used in NFTs. Next, we discuss four ways in which the economic and social potential of NFTs can be derailed, leading to ‘digital enclosures’ whereby large institutional copyright holders reap most of these benefits for themselves through illegitimate – and sometimes unlawful – rent-seeking, as well as the very real potential for fraudulent activities by malicious actors. Finally, we offer some initial suggestions on how to regulate NFTs and blockchain technology to prevent these illegitimate forms of rent-seeking and the ‘digital enclosures’ to which they give rise. Future governance in this area should be directed toward protecting individual artists, content creators, and small businesses over large institutional copyright holders, as do many current laws and regulations.

In this paper, we shed light on the question of whether it is morally permissible to enslave artificially intelligent entities by looking at up to date research from the social sciences – as well as the ancient lessons from Jewish law. The first part of the article looks at general ethical questions surrounding the ethics of AI and slavery by looking at contemporary social science research and the moral status of ‘Sex Bots’ – AI entities that are built for the purpose of satisfying human sexual desires. The second part presents a Jewish perspective on the obligation to protect artificial intelligent entities from abuse and raises the issue of the use of such entities in the context of sex therapy. This is followed by a review of slavery and in particular, female slavery in Jewish law and ethics. In the conclusions, we argue that both perspectives provide justification for the ‘Tragedy of the Master’ – that in enslaving AI we risk doing great harm to ourselves. This has significant and negative consequences for us – as individuals, in our relationships, and as a society that strives to value the dignity, autonomy, and moral worth of all sentient beings.

This research undertakes a systematic review of cases cleared using forensic genetic genealogy (FGG) and has produced a dataset and annotated bibliography that can be used for further research. Data was collected to better understand the impact of FGG on a number of metrics relating to substantive, procedural, and distributive justice. FGG has been used primarily to clear cases involving serial and sexual violence against female and vulnerable victims, and in cases involving stranger victimization – cases that have traditionally been more difficult to clear. About 80% of victims were targeted for sexual violence, and about 28% belonged to social groups that are particularly vulnerable to criminal and sexual exploitation. About 79% of suspects and 48% of victims were of European ancestry, although the ancestry of many victims was unknown as they are victims of sexual assault. In the U.S., FGG investigations were primarily conducted in lower-income U.S. counties and were overrepresented in rural areas while being underused in the 50 largest metropolitan areas. The ten largest police departments in the U.S. cleared only 2% of cases and identified 5 suspects. The average time for FGG to clear a case was found to be 12.1 months. The rights of defendants to a fair trial are best secured when cases are cleared quickly and brought to trial in a timely fashion. Many of these cases had been open for many years: this allowed offenders to victimize others, while also leading to higher incidences of wrongful convictions, prosecutions, and innocent suspects being investigated by police. Rates of prior wrongful conviction in the dataset ranged from 2.8% of all crimes, to 3.7% of all homicides. Rates of wrongful prosecutions ranged from 10.1% of all crimes, to 16.5% of all rape-murders. Two persons have been exonerated as a result of an FGG investigation. FGG is advancing the aims of justice in several important ways and should be made more widely available, especially for victims who have been less well-served by the criminal justice system. Further steps to regulate FGG will be welcome in order to further these benefits while reassuring the public of the safety and security of their information.

Immanuel Kant's Cosmopolitanism has come to stand alongside Political Realism and Liberal Internationalism as one of three broad theories of ethics in international relations. Yet Cosmopolitanism has been subjected to criticisms that the universal norms identified by Kant - including such norms as hospitality, reciprocity, and publicity (transparency and free political participation) - are Western and Eurocentric in nature, incompatible with cultural pluralism, and lack the justification and legitimacy for the broad-based consensus required for a Cosmopolitan political sphere to emerge among the world’s diverse peoples. This paper seeks to address these criticisms of Cosmopolitanism by studying examples of Cosmopolitan norms in action. These examples have been drawn from diverse regions around the globe to represent self-organized, 'self-legislating', civil societies that have themselves developed the rules that guide their behaviour and the terms of their discourse in the absence of a centralized governing authority. It is hoped that this approach will contribute to this ongoing debate by demonstrating that Cosmopolitan norms can be found in a diverse array of human communities and cultures, that Cosmopolitan norms are not only compatible with pluralism, but are instrumental in its success and vitality, and, finally, that the flourishing of such civil societies shows that the adoption of Cosmopolitan norms are strongly correlated with successful outcomes and well-being.

This paper examines the regulation of technology platform companies providing a platform for user-generated media content while playing an increasingly dominant role in the global flow of news and information. In doing so, platform companies play a crucial role in modern civic life, by deciding which content will reach users, engage the public's attention, and be deemed credible. It is therefore crucial that we choose means of regulation that foster democratic values and robust civic engagement. In this paper we focus on the regulation of ‘computational propaganda', including misinformation and ‘fake news', the rise of synthetic media and so-called ‘deep fakes', and novel forms of algorithmic injustice, such as the manipulation of search engine results and their effect on elections. We argue that many existing regulations fall short in that they adopt an approach that views regulation as a battle between two competing powers, or ‘empires’ – that of the regulatory state versus the big tech companies. Accordingly, they approach regulation as a means of redistributing power between these two players, while discounting the end user, and they often involve unjustified restrictions of free speech through the imposition of content controls.

"In this chapter, we offer a critique of the growing use of virtual worlds for children, particularly as tools to teach children the basic elements of storytelling: language, narrative, the creative imagination, and generativity in applying learned skills. We argue that virtual storytelling is not like other forms of storytelling, particularly for children, who are still developing these abilities. There is evidence that digital storytelling through virtual worlds lacks many of the positive aspects of non-digital storytelling, and may even inhibit the development of imagination in children. In this chapter, we review the literature on children and virtual worlds, focusing on the importance and development of the creative imagination in children. We discuss the visualization hypothesis – a theory that was developed to explain how television produces a reductive effect on the imagination because it presents the user with ready-made visual images – and generalize it to new media, including virtual worlds. We posit the ‘displacement hypothesis’, which states that when manufactured content is supplied ready-made to the individual, then it displaces the creative and imaginative processes that the individual would otherwise supply for him or herself. The more immersive the medium, the more psychological dimensions are captured by this displacement – such as sound, the visual, narrative content, time, space, physical presence – the more reductive are the effects on the individual’s imagination. We conclude that further research is needed in order to determine the long-term effects of virtual worlds on child development, and that in the meantime virtual worlds are an inappropriate medium for children’s storytelling." --From publisher description.