Prince Sultan University CH7 Is the Development of Grief Bots Ethical Questions As technology impacts most aspects of our lives, it also affects the way we

Prince Sultan University CH7 Is the Development of Grief Bots Ethical Questions As technology impacts most aspects of our lives, it also affects the way we respond to death, and mourn. Not too many years ago, for example people grieving after a death didn’t have to worry about memorializing loved ones’ social media accounts, about including “digital assets” in a will, about being painfully reminded of their loss by a company’s well-intended but ill-considered “engagement” efforts, or about potentially losing treasure troves of memories if a photo hosting platform shut down.

The sadness is as old as the world, but people, through technology, respond to it in new ways. One such recent development is the creation of “griefbots.” An article titled “The Griefbot that Could Change How We Mourn” details in particular the work of a data scientist, Muhammad Ahmad, who hopes that artificial intelligence will “eventually allow us to craft the data left behind by an individual into convincing text-based simulations of that person. “Such simulations would “respond when prompted, imitating the deceased’s intonation, tone, and idiosyncrasies.”

Ahmad has been working on his own “griefbot.” The project was a response to a personal loss—the death of his father. It is an effort to reclaim (or continue) interactivity with someone who has died. Beyond the interaction with those who knew the deceased, however, Ahmad also envisions a kind of interactivity that would span generations: When his father died four years ago, Ahmad lamented the fact that any future children he would have would never be able to bond with their grandfather. He drew on his previous research, … and spent the last few years collecting data his father had left behind, such as audio or video recordings, text messages, and transcripts of letters. This information has allowed him to create a messenger program that (he claims) can imitate his father. …

Ahmad now has a 2-year-old daughter, and as he continues to evolve his simulation (he’s currently exploring how to enable it respond to images and adapt to new contexts), he hopes that one day she’ll form the appearance of a connection with her grandfather.

Is the development of “grief bots” ethical? Justify your answer using the philosophical lens.

Full mark Requirements: All parts of the question are correctly answered • A clear justification stating the logic behind the answer is provided with the answer • Complete and correct sentences are used.

analyze the case in an ethical perspective

use the slides to help you , it is very simple Academic, Research and
Technology Ethics –
Chapter 7
ELAN 460
DR. HALA ISMAIL
Outline
Academic ethics: What is cheating? What is plagiarism? What are the consequences of
cheating?
Research ethics: Why is research ethics important?
Ethics of technology
Academic Ethics
What is cheating? What is plagiarism?
What is cheating? What is plagiarism?
Cheating is any action in which an individual breaks the rules to benefit his or her self-interests,
whether it is academically, professionally or financially.
Plagiarism is taking the work of others and claiming implicitly or explicitly that it is one’s own.
Intentional vs. unintentional
Why do people cheat?
Why do people cheat?
People justify cheating:
– Everyone does it.
– I can cheat so why don’t I.
– I have to do whatever I can to get ahead.
Why do people cheat?
◦ Lack of Skill, Knowledge or Preparation, Time Constraints
◦ Laziness
◦ Poorly defined/constructed assignments
◦ Lack of instructions
◦ Competitive View of Education (the pressure to cheat): the goal of education is to
do the best that you can, but also to do better than others.
The role of technology and cheating
Technology can blur the distinction between plagiarism and one’s
own work.
Some students see cutting and pasting as a skill.
Today’s students have always had the internet and heavily rely on it.
Plagiarism detection software can deter plagiarism, or does it?
Watch the video:

Interesting facts about cheating
Honor codes does help.
Women are less likely to act upon and support cheating behavior
than men.
What are the consequences of cheating?
Consequences of cheating
When you are hired by future employers based on the
idea that you received good grades in a certain subject,
you will not be able to solve problems, offer ideas, or
maintain the workload in that subject area.
It ruins your self esteem.
If you are caught, you could fail the course, be expelled,
and gain a bad reputation with your teachers and peers.
Students who cheat lose an element of personal integrity
that is difficult to recapture.
students who cheat are more likely to behave dishonestly
on the job.
Think before you cheat!
Think how it can affect you on the long run and affect the people around you.
Ethical dilemma
It’s midway through the spring semester, and you are taking a math test. You’ve been struggling
all semester in this class, and you know that this test will form a big part of your grade. You feel
like you are doing quite well on the test until you come to the last problem. It is worth 20 points
and you just can’t remember how to solve it. As it happens, the class math whiz is sitting right in
front of you and you can see he’s just finished it. You are close enough to see how he solved it,
and you know that no teacher can see you if you cheat.
What do you do?
Would you cheat?
Whether you respond yes or no, explain your reasoning.
Think of someone you have a great deal of respect for. Would that person cheat? Why or why not?
What would you do if you cheated and then a fellow student confronted you and was angry about
what you did?
Suppose you cheated. If the teacher asked you the next day whether or not you cheated, would you
confess or make something up?
Have you been in this situation? Would you change anything about your decision now?
Have you ever seen someone cheat in class? What did it feel like?
If one person cheats in a class, do you think anyone else is affected? Why & how / Why not?
How big an issue is cheating in your school? Do you think it affects you?
Research Ethics
Research Ethics
Research ethics concerns the responsibility of researchers to be
honest and respectful to all individuals who are affected by their
research studies or their reports of the studies’ results.
Why is research ethics important?
Unethical research examples
Breaking and re-breaking of bones ( to see how many times they could be
broken before healing failed to occur) Nazi
Unethical research examples
Patients had been injected with live cancer cells (Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital, NY, 1963)
Unethical research examples
400 men had been left to suffer with syphilis long after a cure ( penicillin) was available.
(Tuskegee, Alabama, 1932-72)
Unethical research examples
Milgram’s study sustained no physical harm, they suffered shame and embarrassment for having
behaved inhumanely toward their fellow human beings.(1963)

Stanley Milgram Shock Experiment: Summary, Results, & Ethics

Unethical research practices
Academic fraud (active vs passive)
Involuntary participation
False incentives
Deception (misusing personal information)
Plagiarism
Key ethical standards
Informed Consent (special consideration for minors).
Need for debriefing
Right to withdraw
Confidentiality
Safety and risk
Ethical principles involved
Beneficence
Non-maleficence
Autonomy and respect
Fairness and justice
Honesty
Ethical or unethical?
Students are required to prepare a research proposal during their
undergraduate program. Nimal developed the idea for his project and
discussed with a friend. Several months later, he found that his idea had been
submitted as a research proposal by his friend without his knowledge.
Four friends decide to work together on a research project during the vacation.
One of them went abroad during the vacation and did not contribute to the
research. The friends include all 4 names in a presentation made at a scientific
congress.
Ethical or unethical?
A group of undergraduate students collected data from a group of bank
officers, with their consent, regarding their working hours and salary with
regards to the prevalence of high blood pressure. Subsequently the
researchers gave the same data to another group who were in need of same
data variables.
A group of medical students conducted a research on the awareness of
diabetic diet in medical clinic participants. Their research was recognized as
the best undergraduate research and later they submitted the same research
paper to two different journals to see which journal publishes it first.
Ethics of Technology
Ethics is the theory and practice of ways to make good choices and lead a good life.
It involves both knowledge and skills.
https://www.scu.edu/ethics/focus-areas/technology-ethics/
Growing Concerns in Technology Ethics
What are people (those who design and build the
technology, those who use it, and those who are impacted
by it even if they don’t use it directly) increasingly
concerned about?
New technology raises ethical issues!
Technology doesn’t police itself. New technologies require us to pay attention, voice our
concerns constructively, and demand accountability when people are harmed.
Robots as intelligent as humans
New technology raises ethical issues!
Cloning
For $25k-$50k, you can now clone your cat or dog.
New technology raises ethical issues!
The datafication of children
Children don’t have any right to privacy when it comes to their parents.
New technology raises ethical issues!
Designed bugs
Genetically modified insects that can deliver viruses to plants.
New technology raises ethical issues!
Nanomedicine
Medical products with atomic precision
New technology raises ethical issues!
Autonomous translation
Siri, do my Spanish homework
Ethical issues of technology
The first step toward building ethical technology is to recognize and identify ethical issues.
And ethical issues are like birds. How?
▪ They’re everywhere: some ordinary, some rare, some big, some small, some local, some exotic, some
abundant.
▪It’s easy to go through life surrounded by them & not seeing them.
▪Getting good at seeing them is a skill, only built by practice.
▪Practice makes finding them easier, and more rewarding.
▪Skilled watchers learn how to see them, and where/when they are most likely to turn up
▪Certain types are found more in some areas than others
▪It’s easier to spot & identify them with other watchers (esp. with watchers familiar with particular
environments)
▪Some in the wild are hard to see without special lenses
II. Ethical Lenses
(To help you spot and identify ethical issues)
Types of lenses:
1.
Philosophical: Rights, justice, fairness, the common good, and virtue ethics
2.
Regional/Cultural
3.
Professional
4.
Organizational
Philosophical:
▪Rights: Which option best respects the rights of all
stakeholders?
▪Justice: Which option treats people
equally/proportionately?
▪Utilitarianism: Which option will produce the most good
and do the least harm?
▪Common Good: Which option best serves the community
as a whole, not just some members?
▪Virtue: Which option leads us to act as the sort of persons
we want to be?
Regional/Cultural
▪In what situations should we change our ethical expectations to
match those of others?
▪In what situations should we refuse, for compelling ethical reasons,
to honor the social norms of another tradition?
Professional:
Honoring the codes of ethics of your profession.
Organizational
Honoring organizational principles
Those ethical lenses are tools to help us manage complexity.
They don’t eliminate it.
Consider the ethical risks
Ethical risks may cause significant harm to persons or things with
moral status, or are likely to spark moral controversy for other
reasons. As part of risk-assessment,
•Look for the likely causal interactions that will lead to harm
•Seek the moral perspectives of other stakeholders
•Look beyond the material/economic causes of harm
•Consider risks that are subtle, hidden, or significant only in
aggregate
Remembering the Ethical Benefits
Too often we focus narrowly on ethics as being about “problems”—but products
that benefit human flourishing represent an ethical success.
Ask some hard questions:
•Will society/the world/our customers be better off with this tech than without
it?
•Has the ethical benefit of this technology remained at the center of our work
and thinking?
•What are we willing to sacrifice to do this right?
Expanding the Ethical Circle
Questions to ask:
•Who will be the people most directly affected by this
product?
•Who/which groups will be indirectly affected?
•Who is at greatest risk of harm from our product, and
how?
•How do we engage those groups?
Think about the terrible people!
Products will be used by many—some of whom are not the ideal customer. This
is a tool you will need to use repeatedly. Questions to ask:
•Who will want to abuse, steal, misinterpret, hack, or weaponize what we have
made?
•What will our product do in the hands of a person who is careless, reckless,
deeply misinformed, or irrational?
•What rewards/incentives/openings might we have inadvertently created for
those people or groups?
•How can we remove those rewards/incentives?
Apply the ethical cycle
The ethical cycle framework integrates much of what we have just covered and provides a useful
method for exploring ethical dilemmas and identifying ethical courses of action:
•Recognize the ethical issues
•Get the facts
•Evaluate alternative actions (through the ethical lenses)
•Make a decision and test it
•Act and reflect on the outcome
Revision

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