42,177 research outputs found
Building Ethically Bounded AI
The more AI agents are deployed in scenarios with possibly unexpected
situations, the more they need to be flexible, adaptive, and creative in
achieving the goal we have given them. Thus, a certain level of freedom to
choose the best path to the goal is inherent in making AI robust and flexible
enough. At the same time, however, the pervasive deployment of AI in our life,
whether AI is autonomous or collaborating with humans, raises several ethical
challenges. AI agents should be aware and follow appropriate ethical principles
and should thus exhibit properties such as fairness or other virtues. These
ethical principles should define the boundaries of AI's freedom and creativity.
However, it is still a challenge to understand how to specify and reason with
ethical boundaries in AI agents and how to combine them appropriately with
subjective preferences and goal specifications. Some initial attempts employ
either a data-driven example-based approach for both, or a symbolic rule-based
approach for both. We envision a modular approach where any AI technique can be
used for any of these essential ingredients in decision making or decision
support systems, paired with a contextual approach to define their combination
and relative weight. In a world where neither humans nor AI systems work in
isolation, but are tightly interconnected, e.g., the Internet of Things, we
also envision a compositional approach to building ethically bounded AI, where
the ethical properties of each component can be fruitfully exploited to derive
those of the overall system. In this paper we define and motivate the notion of
ethically-bounded AI, we describe two concrete examples, and we outline some
outstanding challenges.Comment: Published at AAAI Blue Sky Track, winner of Blue Sky Awar
The Changing Face of Economics? Ethical Issues in Contemporary Economic Schools as a Consequence of Changes in the Concept of Human Nature
The last financial crisis combined with some recent social trends (like growing inequality or environmental problems) inspired many contemporary economists to the
re-evaluation of actual economic knowledge in the search for solutions to these
problems. Modern economic schools (especially heterodox ones) stress the meaning
of ethical issues in economics more often. The thesis of the paper is that this revival
of the ethical face of present economics depends very strongly on the changing assumptions of human nature within economics and other disciplines which work
alongside economics, such as social psychology or business ethics, for instance. In
order to prove the thesis, the paper provides an evaluation of current economic
schools, especially within the heterodoxy, in search of their ethical aspects, and presents them as a result of the changing assumptions about human beings within those
schools. This ethical dimension of human beings manifests itself in different ways,
which can be perceived as a result of it being based on different ethical schools and
different psychological and philosophical assumptions about human nature. Therefore, the paper also considers the current developments of the view on human beings
in contemporary schools of economic ethics
Commons Organizing: Embedding Common Good and Institutions for Collective Action. Insights from Ethics and Economics
In recent years, business ethics and economic scholars have been paying greater attention to the development of commons
organizing. The latter refers to the processes by which communities of people work in common in the pursuit of the common
good. In turn, this promotes commons organizational designs based on collective forms of common goods production, distribution, management and ownership. In this paper, we build on two main literature streams: (1) the ethical approach based
on the theory of the common good of the frm in virtue ethics and (2) the economic approach based on the theory of institutions for collective action developed by Ostromâs research on common-pool resources to avert the tragedy of the commons.
The latter expands to include the novel concepts of new commons, âcommoningâ and polycentric governance. Drawing on
the analysis of what is new in these forms of organizing, we propose a comprehensive model, highlighting the integration of
two sets of organizing principlesâcommon good and collective action â and fve problem-solving processes to explain the
main dimensions of commons organizing. We contribute to business ethics literature by exploring the convergence between
the ethical and economic approaches in the development of a commons organizing view
Mindful reflexivity: Unpacking the process of transformative learning in mindfulness and discernment
Can spiritual practice encourage transformative learning? In this article, we unpack how spiritual practices from the Buddhist traditionâmindfulnessâand the Quaker traditionâdiscernmentâencourage the attainment of moral reflexivity and the capacity to transform self in individual and relational organizational contexts, respectively. We also show how moral reflexivity and self-transformation are mutually reinforcing and promote a transformational cycle of management learning. We propose that âmindful reflexivityâ, a foundational model of spiritually informed moral reflexivity, can contribute to new ways of management learning through its context sensitivity and ethical orientation to foster the kinds of reflexivity needed for responsible management. Our article concludes with implications for management learning theory and practice, and we offer pathways for future research
Permeating the social justice ideals of equality and equity within the context of Early Years: challenges for leadership in multi-cultural and mono-cultural primary schools
The ideology and commitment of social justice principles is central to Early Years practice, however, the term social justice in education is complex and remains contested. This paper explores the ideology of social justice through links between equality and equity and how it is embedded within Early Years, and what remain the potential challenges for leadership. Interviews in English multi-cultural and mono-cultural primary schools were conducted. Findings showed that the ideology of social justice, equality and equity was interpreted differently. Multi-cultural schools appear to use a greater variety of activities to embed social justice principles that involved their diverse communities more to enrich the curriculum. In mono-cultural schools leadership had to be more creative in promoting equality and equity given the smaller proportion of their diverse pupil and staff population. Tentative conclusions suggest that the vision for permeating equality and equity in Early Years, at best, is at early stages
The role of socio-technical experiments in introducing sustainable Product-Service System innovations
This is the pre-print version of the chapter published in 2015 by Springer in the book âThe Handbook of Service Innovationâ (edited by Renu Agarwal, Willem Selen, Göran Roos and Roy Green).
The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-6590-3_18Product-Service System (PSS) innovations represent a promising approach to sustainability, but their implementation and diffusion are hindered by several cultural, corporate, and regulative barriers. Hence, an important challenge is not only to conceive sustainable PSS concepts, but also to understand how to manage, support, and orient the introduction and diffusion of these concepts. Building upon insights from transition studies (in particular, the concepts of Strategic Niche Management and Transition Management), and through an action research project, the chapter investigates the role of design in introducing sustainable radical service innovations. A key role is given to the implementation of socio-technical experiments, partially protected spaces where innovations can be incubated and tested, become more mature, and potentially favor the implementation and scaling up process
The ethical infrastructure of legal practice in larger law firms: values, policy and behaviour
The article examines the impact of the cultures and organisational structures of large law firms on individual lawyers' ethics. The paper suggests that large law firms in Australia should consciously design and implement 'ethical infrastructures' to both counteract pressures for misbehaviour and positively promote ethical behaviour and discussion. The paper goes on to explain what implementing ethical infrastructures in law firms could and should mean by reference to what Australian law firms are already doing and US innovations in this area. Finally, the paper warns that the 'ethical infrastructure' of a firm should not be seen merely as the formal ethics policies explicitly enunciated by management. Formal and legalistic ethical infrastructures that fail to support or encourage the development of individual lawyers' awareness oftheir own ethical values and ethical judgment in practice will be useless
Institutions and the environment: the case for a historical political economy
This paper provides a critical review of the âstate of the artâ of institutional analysis applied essentially by social-ecological economists in the environmental domain. It highlights both areas of strength and issues where there is still room for improvement in analytical terms, by construing these approaches in the context of a general taxonomy of institutionalisms â widely used in politics and applied here in the economic realm. This provides the rationale for re-construing a number of related issues drawn from the core insights of a historical institutionalist approach to human-natureEcological economics, institutional analysis, socio-economy, regulation
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