Hasil untuk "Ethics"

C. Ellis

Yaling Shen, Stephanie Fong, Yiwen Jiang et al.

The increasing integration of large language models (LLMs) into mental health applications necessitates robust frameworks for evaluating professional safety alignment. Current evaluative approaches primarily rely on refusal-based safety signals, which offer limited insight into the nuanced behaviors required in clinical practice. In mental health, clinically inadequate refusals can be perceived as unempathetic and discourage help-seeking. To address this gap, we move beyond refusal-centric metrics and introduce \texttt{PsychEthicsBench}, the first principle-grounded benchmark based on Australian psychology and psychiatry guidelines, designed to evaluate LLMs' ethical knowledge and behavioral responses through multiple-choice and open-ended tasks with fine-grained ethicality annotations. Empirical results across 14 models reveal that refusal rates are poor indicators of ethical behavior, revealing a significant divergence between safety triggers and clinical appropriateness. Notably, we find that domain-specific fine-tuning can degrade ethical robustness, as several specialized models underperform their base backbones in ethical alignment. PsychEthicsBench provides a foundation for systematic, jurisdiction-aware evaluation of LLMs in mental health, encouraging more responsible development in this domain.

Benjamin Lange, Geoff Keeling, Kyle Pedersen et al.

Bottom-up responsible innovation initiatives seek to empower technology development teams to engage in ethical reflection, yet such interventions frequently fail to achieve practitioner engagement. Why do some ethics interventions succeed while others are dismissed as irrelevant, adversarial, or disconnected from work? This paper proposes epistemic trust -- the degree to which practitioners regard an intervention, its facilitators, and its content as credible, relevant, and actionable -- as a conceptual model linking intervention design to engagement outcomes. Drawing on philosophical work on testimony and on practice-based qualitative analysis of over 70 moral imagination workshops with engineering teams between 2019 and 2025, we identify five dimensions of epistemic trust salient to ethics interventions (Relevance, Inclusivity, Agency, Authority, and Alignment) and present a typology of 23 failure modes that arise when these dimensions are inadequately addressed. We derive nine design principles for cultivating epistemic trust, grounded in our operationalisation of moral imagination through technomoral scenarios and structured deliberation. Our findings contribute to the literature on collaborative socio-technical integration by specifying conditions of uptake that existing frameworks leave undertheorised. We acknowledge limitations including selection effects from voluntary participation and the absence of formal outcome measures, and position our failure mode typology as practitioner hypotheses warranting further empirical validation.

Chioma Uzoma, Goldie Chukwuedo, Ejeh Isaac et al.

Chatbots are increasingly used in digital health to expand access to information and support user engagement. In sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), where stigma, privacy concerns, and health system constraints often limit timely access to accurate information, chatbots have been proposed as scalable tools for delivering education and facilitating service navigation. This perspective examines the role of chatbots as frontline educators in SRHR, drawing insights from existing evidence to assess the effectiveness of chatbots, practical implications, key limitations, and ethical considerations. Available evidence suggests that chatbots can enhance access to SRHR information, support user engagement, and contribute to improved knowledge, confidence, and linkage to services. However, the current evidence base remains uneven, with limited rigorous evaluation of long-term behavioural or health outcomes. Challenges related to accuracy, contextual responsiveness, privacy, equity, and accountability persist, underscoring the need for careful design and governance. Positioning chatbots as complementary components within integrated SRHR strategies, rather than standalone solutions, may offer a pragmatic pathway to harness their potential while safeguarding user rights and health outcomes.

Giovanni Adorni, Emanuele Bellini

The accelerated evolution of digital infrastructures and algorithmic systems is reshaping how the humanities engage with knowledge and culture. Rooted in the traditions of Digital Humanities and Digital Humanism, the concept of "Cyber Humanities" proposes a critical reconfiguration of humanistic inquiry for the post-digital era. This Manifesto introduces a flexible framework that integrates ethical design, sustainable digital practices, and participatory knowledge systems grounded in human-centered approaches. By means of a Decalogue of foundational principles, the Manifesto invites the scientific community to critically examine and reimagine the algorithmic infrastructures that influence culture, creativity, and collective memory. Rather than being a simple extension of existing practices, "Cyber Humanities" should be understood as a foundational paradigm for humanistic inquiry in a computationally mediated world. Keywords: Cyber Humanities, Digital Humanities, Transdisciplinary Epistemology, Algorithmic Reflexivity, Human-centered AI, Ethics-by-Design, Knowledge Ecosystems, Digital Sovereignty, Cognitive Infrastructures

Alexandra Sasha Luccioni, Giada Pistilli, Raesetje Sefala et al.

As the possibilities for Artificial Intelligence (AI) have grown, so have concerns regarding its impacts on society and the environment. However, these issues are often raised separately; i.e. carbon footprint analyses of AI models typically do not consider how the pursuit of scale has contributed towards building models that are both inaccessible to most researchers in terms of cost and disproportionately harmful to the environment. On the other hand, model audits that aim to evaluate model performance and disparate impacts mostly fail to engage with the environmental ramifications of AI models and how these fit into their auditing approaches. In this separation, both research directions fail to capture the depth of analysis that can be explored by considering the two in parallel and the potential solutions for making informed choices that can be developed at their convergence. In this essay, we build upon work carried out in AI and in sister communities, such as philosophy and sustainable development, to make more deliberate connections around topics such as generalizability, transparency, evaluation and equity across AI research and practice. We argue that the efforts aiming to study AI's ethical ramifications should be made in tandem with those evaluating its impacts on the environment, and we conclude with a proposal of best practices to better integrate AI ethics and sustainability in AI research and practice.

Joshua Hatherley, Anders Søgaard, Angela Ballantyne et al.

Federated learning (FL) is a machine learning approach that allows multiple devices or institutions to collaboratively train a model without sharing their local data with a third-party. FL is considered a promising way to address patient privacy concerns in medical artificial intelligence. The ethical risks of medical FL systems themselves, however, have thus far been underexamined. This paper aims to address this gap. We argue that medical FL presents a new variety of opacity -- federation opacity -- that, in turn, generates a distinctive double black box problem in healthcare AI. We highlight several instances in which the anticipated benefits of medical FL may be exaggerated, and conclude by highlighting key challenges that must be overcome to make FL ethically feasible in medicine.

Mohammad Reza Danesh Shahraki, Seyyed Mojtaba Va’ezi

AbstractThis research examines Al-Farabi's theory of government in light of the concept of "civil science." Al-Farabi considers civil science to be a knowledge that is responsible for explaining the principles, goals, and regulations of human society, with the ultimate aim being the attainment of true happiness. In this framework, the government has an instrumental role that guides society from theoretical principles to practical goals. Al-Farabi's methodology in civil science is based on the "arc of ascent," emphasizing the voluntary and conscious actions of humans, and is realized through social cooperation. From his perspective, the realization of the virtuous city requires two fundamental pillars: cooperation and leadership; its continuity depends on the establishment of a virtuous government. Al-Farabi, emphasizing the connection between reason and revelation, sees the government as responsible for four main areas: guidance and protection of public values, execution, legislation, and judgment. He regards the legitimacy of the ruler as a divine matter, contingent upon popular acceptance, and based on this, considers only the ruler who possesses all theoretical, intellectual, moral, and practical virtues as worthy of absolute power. The results of the research indicate that Al-Farabi's theory of government is not only based on the foundations of Islamic philosophy and Greek heritage but also provides a coherent model for understanding the relationship between ethics, politics, and religion in the Islamic political system, with a focus on happiness and social cooperation.

Haylie R. Helms, Luiz E. Bertassoni

Summary: Spatial transcriptomics is a powerful tool for investigating how cellular composition and spatial relationships influence cell behavior. Here, we present a protocol for spatial transcriptomic profiling of 2D engineered tissues and cell cultures that are not compatible with standard embedding and sectioning. We detail steps for sample generation, fixation, and staining to integrate with Visium HD spatial technology. This protocol provides a flexible solution for sample generation for spatial transcriptomic analysis. : Publisher’s note: Undertaking any experimental protocol requires adherence to local institutional guidelines for laboratory safety and ethics.

Daria Korobenko, Anastasija Nikiforova, Rajesh Sharma

As artificial intelligence continues its unprecedented global expansion, accompanied by a proliferation of benefits, an increasing apprehension about the privacy and security implications of AI-enabled systems emerges. The pivotal question of effectively controlling AI development at both jurisdictional and organizational levels has become a prominent theme in contemporary discourse. While the European Parliament and Council have taken a decisive step by reaching a political agreement on the EU AI Act, the first comprehensive AI law, organizations still find it challenging to adapt to the fast-evolving AI landscape, lacking a universal tool for evaluating the privacy and security dimensions of their AI models and systems. In response to this critical challenge, this study conducts a systematic literature review spanning the years 2020 to 2023, with a primary focus on establishing a unified definition of key concepts in AI Ethics, particularly emphasizing the domains of privacy and security. Through the synthesis of knowledge extracted from the SLR, this study presents a conceptual framework tailored for privacy- and security-aware AI systems. This framework is designed to assist diverse stakeholders, including organizations, academic institutions, and governmental bodies, in both the development and critical assessment of AI systems. Essentially, the proposed framework serves as a guide for ethical decision-making, fostering an environment wherein AI is developed and utilized with a strong commitment to ethical principles. In addition, the study unravels the key issues and challenges surrounding the privacy and security dimensions, delineating promising avenues for future research, thereby contributing to the ongoing dialogue on the globalization and democratization of AI ethics.

Sherri Lynn Conklin, Sue Bae, Gaurav Sett et al.

In May 2023, the Georgia Tech Ethics, Technology, and Human Interaction Center organized the Conference on Ethical and Responsible Design in the National AI Institutes. Representatives from the National AI Research Institutes that had been established as of January 2023 were invited to attend; researchers representing 14 Institutes attended and participated. The conference focused on three questions: What are the main challenges that the National AI Institutes are facing with regard to the responsible design of AI systems? What are promising lines of inquiry to address these challenges? What are possible points of collaboration? Over the course of the conference, a revised version of the first question became a focal point: What are the challenges that the Institutes face in identifying ethical and responsible design practices and in implementing them in the AI development process? This document summarizes the challenges that representatives from the Institutes in attendance highlighted.

N'yoma Diamond, Soumya Banerjee

The Generative Agents framework recently developed by Park et al. has enabled numerous new technical solutions and problem-solving approaches. Academic and industrial interest in generative agents has been explosive as a result of the effectiveness of generative agents toward emulating human behaviour. However, it is necessary to consider the ethical challenges and concerns posed by this technique and its usage. In this position paper, we discuss the extant literature that evaluate the ethical considerations regarding generative agents and similar generative tools, and identify additional concerns of significant importance. We also suggest guidelines and necessary future research on how to mitigate some of the ethical issues and systemic risks associated with generative agents.

Muhammad Suhaib Shahid, Gleb E. Yakubov, Andrew P. French

Forming oral models capable of understanding the complete dynamics of the oral cavity is vital across research areas such as speech correction, designing foods for the aging population, and dentistry. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technologies, capable of capturing oral data essential for creating such detailed representations, offer a powerful tool for illustrating articulatory dynamics. However, its real-time application is hindered by expense and expertise requirements. Ever advancing generative AI approaches present themselves as a way to address this barrier by leveraging multi-modal approaches for generating pseudo-MRI views. Nonetheless, this immediately sparks ethical concerns regarding the utilisation of a technology with the capability to produce MRIs from facial observations. This paper explores the ethical implications of external-to-internal correlation modeling (E2ICM). E2ICM utilises facial movements to infer internal configurations and provides a cost-effective supporting technology for MRI. In this preliminary work, we employ Pix2PixGAN to generate pseudo-MRI views from external articulatory data, demonstrating the feasibility of this approach. Ethical considerations concerning privacy, consent, and potential misuse, which are fundamental to our examination of this innovative methodology, are discussed as a result of this experimentation.

Chengyuan Deng, Yiqun Duan, Xin Jin et al.

Large Language Models (LLMs) have achieved unparalleled success across diverse language modeling tasks in recent years. However, this progress has also intensified ethical concerns, impacting the deployment of LLMs in everyday contexts. This paper provides a comprehensive survey of ethical challenges associated with LLMs, from longstanding issues such as copyright infringement, systematic bias, and data privacy, to emerging problems like truthfulness and social norms. We critically analyze existing research aimed at understanding, examining, and mitigating these ethical risks. Our survey underscores integrating ethical standards and societal values into the development of LLMs, thereby guiding the development of responsible and ethically aligned language models.

Ali Abdollahi, Mina Mobasher

As a rule, physicians’ reputation significantly influences public confidence in the medical profession. Unfortunately, the societal perception of physicians in contemporary Iran appears to be negatively impacted. Therefore, the present study aimed to analyze and elucidate the fundamental causes of this phenomenon.This qualitative study employed content analysis of semi-structured interviews conducted in 2022. The study population consisted of 6 physicians, 6 nurses and 12 patients in the the affiliated hospitals in Kerman University of Medical Sciences selected through purposive sampling. Extraction of the main themes followed the Graneheim and Lundman approach, and data management was facilitated through MAXQDA 20. The study identified five themes encapsulating the causes for damage to physicians’ reputation: physicians' relationship with patients, physicians' relationship with the community, physicians' relationship with the medical profession, challenges within medical practice, and challenges related to medical education. Within these themes, a total of 38 subthemes emerged.The primary drivers that seem to damage physicians’ reputation include: non-effective communication, negative public attitudes toward certain physicians and medical centers due to malpractice, illegitimate relationships of physicians, gaps in physicians’ skills, insufficient education, and ethical lapses.It was concluded that several infrastructural elements negatively impact physicians' reputation. Consequently, it is recommended to monitor the professional behaviors, practices and relationships of physicians, while scrutinizing the medical education system.

Josephine Ngozi Akah, Anthony Chinaemerem Ajah

This study examined how cross-cultural methodological approach can improve research on environmental sustainability in Africa. What is considered as the traditional methodological approaches to environmental sustainability in the continent are based on siloed traditions and revelation/intuition, and therefore low in creativity. Worse still, whereas ideas from other cultures could infuse new perspectives, creativity, and innovation, many scholars in areas studies insist on methodological monism because of a deeper interest in preserving cultural identity of the regions they study. This approach negatively affects area studies in general and African studies in particular. Thus, two questions guided this study: (i) how can cross-cultural approach to the study of the environment improve its sustainability in Africa; and (ii) to what degree do traditional approaches to knowledge enhance creativity and innovation to environmental sustainability in Africa? To answer these questions, this study adopted, qualitative research methods. Data for the study were generated from secondary sources and analysed using phenomenological, hermeneutic, and critical philosophical approaches. This study argues that insistence on methodological monism is a disservice to environmental sustainability around the world. The study also demonstrates that exploring and incorporating ideas from non-African – particularly modern scientific frameworks – will be beneficial to the continent.

XU Xiao, WU Jiemin, LIANG Yi et al.

Institutions of higher education undertake a significant number of animal experiment projects with diverse types. To standardize animal experiments and ensure animal welfare, ethical review has become a core task for the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) in these higher education institutions. A key issue worth exploring is how to improve the efficiency of animal ethical reviews while maintaining systematic quality of supervision. Based on the current status of ethical reviews at the Laboratory Animal Center of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, this paper designs and implements a full-process ethical review software system. This system seeks to offer solutions for the ethical review and supervision of animal welfare in institutions of higher education through information technology. The system employs a full-process supervision philosophy of "pre-approval, in-process supervision, post-review," focusing on strengthening the review and approval of animal research protocols, as well as post-approval monitoring. At the pre-approval stage, the system optimizes the process for designated members involved in the project review, ensuring that all projects comply with ethical standards and legal regulations. At the in-process stage, veterinary verification and consultation are carried out by executive veterinarians, using a method of "offline inspections and online records" for supervision. At the post-review stage, researchers are required to provide retrospective data to evaluate the experimental process. Additionally, this paper provides an in-depth exploration of the software, detailing its functional and non-functional requirements, as well as its security considerations. It also delves into the comprehensive software architecture, process design, and operational details. Furthermore, it illustrates the system's operational efficacy and impact since its launch. This paper discusses the software's applicability and practicality, analyzing existing limitations and challenges, such as the difficulty of balancing experiment urgency with the stringent nature of review processes, and the traceability blind spots in post-approval supervision. Future research will continue to enhance the accuracy and strength of animal welfare ethical reviews and supervision through new technologies and methods.

G. N. Shavalieva

This article analyzes the norms of behavior in the Russian public service and Islam. A comparative and structural study of the behaviors typical of public officials and Muslims was carried out. It was proposed to revise the legal provisions on international and foreign economic relations and personal qualities. The results obtained show that public officials can adhere to any faith (Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, etc.), as all religions promote fundamental human values and encourage behaviors that are advantageous for society. It was found that the social norms of behavior are universal regardless of legal system, legal status, or social affiliation. All citizens, whether in public service or the Islamic community, must follow these norms because they aim to uphold justice and equality. The importance of fostering cooperation between Russia, through the Republic of Tatarstan, and the Muslim world was emphasized.

Rickham Pp

Francesco Bonacina, Ignacio Echegoyen, Diego Escribano et al.

As Internet of Things (IoT) technology grows, so does the threat of malware infections. A proposed countermeasure, the use of benevolent "white worms" to combat malicious "black worms", presents unique ethical and practical challenges. This study examines these issues via network epidemiology models and simulations, considering the propagation dynamics of both types of worms in various network topologies. Our findings highlight the critical role of the rate at which white worms activate themselves, relative to the user's system update rate, as well as the impact of the network structure on worm propagation. The results point to the potential of white worms as an effective countermeasure, while underscoring the ethical and practical complexities inherent in their deployment.