AI research is routinely criticized for its real and potential impacts on society, and we lack adequate institutional responses to this criticism and to the responsibility that it reflects. AI research often falls outside the purview of existing feedback mechanisms such as the Institutional Review Board (IRB), which are designed to evaluate harms to human subjects rather than harms to human society. In response, we have developed the Ethics and Society Review board (ESR), a feedback panel that works with researchers to mitigate negative ethical and societal aspects of AI research. The ESR’s main insight is to serve as a requirement for funding: researchers cannot receive grant funding from a major AI funding program at our university until the researchers complete the ESR process for the proposal.
Find out more about how the ESR was applied in its first year across 41 proposals and its ongoing impact. The panel identified issues of harms to minority groups, inclusion of diverse stakeholders in the research plan, dual use, and representation in data. Surveys and interviews of researchers who interacted with the ESR found that 58% felt that it had influenced the design of their research project, 100% are willing to continue submitting future projects to the ESR, and that they sought additional scaffolding for reasoning through ethics and society issues. Read the full paper [2106.11521] ESR: Ethics and Society Review of Artificial Intelligence Research (arxiv.org)
The presentation will be hosted by Dr Adrian Weller and will be followed by a discussion about the challenges and opportunities ESR presents other Universities and organisations who might be interested in implementing a similar process.
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