Computational ethics

Technological advances are enabling roles for machines that present novel ethical challenges. The study of 'AI ethics' has emerged to confront these challenges, and connects perspectives from philosophy, computer science, law, and economics. Less represented in these interdisciplinary efforts is the perspective of cognitive science. We propose a framework – computational ethics – that specifies how the ethical challenges of AI can be partially addressed by incorporating the study of human moral decision-making. The driver of this framework is a computational version of reflective equilibrium (RE), an approach that seeks coherence between considered judgments and governing principles. The framework has two goals: (i) to inform the engineering of ethical AI systems, and (ii) to characterize human moral judgment and decision-making in computational terms. Working jointly towards these two goals will create the opportunity to integrate diverse research questions, bring together multiple academic communities, uncover new interdisciplinary research topics, and shed light on centuries-old philosophical questions.publishedVersio

Computational ethics

Technological advances are enabling roles for machines that present novel ethical challenges. The study of 'AI ethics' has emerged to confront these challenges, and connects perspectives from philosophy, computer science, law, and economics. Less represented in these interdisciplinary efforts is the perspective of cognitive science. We propose a framework – computational ethics – that specifies how the ethical challenges of AI can be partially addressed by incorporating the study of human moral decision-making. The driver of this framework is a computational version of reflective equilibrium (RE), an approach that seeks coherence between considered judgments and governing principles. The framework has two goals: (i) to inform the engineering of ethical AI systems, and (ii) to characterize human moral judgment and decision-making in computational terms. Working jointly towards these two goals will create the opportunity to integrate diverse research questions, bring together multiple academic communities, uncover new interdisciplinary research topics, and shed light on centuries-old philosophical questions

Narcissism Over Ideology: Revealed versus Stated Terrorist Preferences

What preferences motivate the severity of terrorist attacks? I investigate how Boko Haram terrorists adjust their fatalities when unexpectedly deprived of public attention, relative to Al Shabaab terrorists, that were not deprived of public attention. Losing public attention raises the severity of terrorism: Boko Haram terrorist fatalities surged following the rebasing of Nigeria’s economy, which catapulted the country into Africa’s largest and the top twenty-five worldwide. The largest spike in Boko Haram terrorist fatalities occurred in the wake of the Nigerian Ebola health crisis. Although Boko Haram claims an anti-education sentiment, their fatalities do not actually differ significantly from Al Shabaab fatalities during the Nigerian national basic education examination. Overall, terrorists consider well-being changes as threats that have more validity than the persuasiveness of their own claimed ideologies. Terrorist groups do not significantly vary the severity of their attacks during Ramadan. Emphasizing revealed preferences may undermine terrorist credibility and recruitment

Priming human-computer interactions: Experimental evidence from economic development mobile surveys

This paper investigates how citizens from developing countries vocalize controversial topics, combining the behavioral economics of development with human-computer interaction for potentially mutual benefit across fields. I examine a priming effort to understand how people decide to discuss controversial local subjects, using the human-computer interaction of people with their mobile phones to quantify how attracted people feel to alternative local political economy topics when randomly asked what they think about international aid. The treatment significantly impacted the likelihood of choosing to discuss sanitation, health, poverty, democracy, individual determination, pro-poor support, and happiness. However, the intervention does not affect subjectively ranked preferences. The proposed approach quantifies the attraction users feel to concepts based on human-computer interactions and this approach may be relevant for contexts beyond developing countries. Human-computer interaction approaches may help policy makers entrusted with the Sustainable Development Goals and other initiatives better understand the needs and desires of people in developing countries

Does Opening Complaints Data Change Company and Consumer Behavior? Evidence from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

I analyze a technological change which improved the public monitoring of financial customer treatment. This major assessment of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is based on its exposing credit card-related complaints online while keeping mortgage-related complaints concealed. Exposed companies were more likely to close complaint files while providing explanations and relief to aggrieved consumers and in a timely manner. The transparency policy seems uncompromised by economic inequality. Consumers procrastinate in reporting exposed banks while rewarding exposed banks for their improved behavior with new accounts. Debt remained generally stable. Surprisingly, both consumers and banks benefit when offending banks are exposed online

Social Science Can Develop Startups for Development

Harnessing technology startups for African development is a policy approach that simply cannot wait. Startups bring data, dynamism and daring to the development table, and have an important role to play in economic development today. Although nonprofit and government initiatives are also significant, social science evidence will enable such organizations to benefit from technology startups for new economic changes to be fast and inclusive

Social Science Can Develop Startups for Development

Harnessing technology startups for African development is a policy approach that simply cannot wait. Startups bring data, dynamism and daring to the development table, and have an important role to play in economic development today. Although nonprofit and government initiatives are also significant, social science evidence will enable such organizations to benefit from technology startups for new economic changes to be fast and inclusive

Does Opening Complaints Data Change Company and Consumer Behavior? Evidence from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

I analyze a technological change which improved the public monitoring of customer treatment in the financial industry. A unique policy exposed all US credit card complaints online while keeping mortgage-related complaints concealed. Exposed companies were more likely to close complaint files while providing explanations and relief to aggrieved consumers and in a timely manner. The transparency policy was not blunted by economic inequality. Consumers seem to procrastinate in reporting exposed banks while rewarding exposed banks for their improved behavior with new accounts, and debt remained generally stable. Other industries may be interested in the potential benefits of being exposed online

Economies of Score

To introduce a novel generalization of economies of scope, the paper develops a theory of average cost reductions based on enabling products to have multiple features or functions. The process is labelled economies of score. Focusing production costs on the details of product features can lead to more significant average cost reductions relative to standard economies of scope and scale. The multifeatured product is a network graph represented with a binary decision diagram that describes product feature integration for each product. A feature equilibrium is defined. Evidence suggests that the approach is apt for describing smartphone-app industrial organization

A Human-Computer Interaction Approach for Integrity in Economics

Emerging data science platforms using simplified and automated user interfaces can help research become significantly more transparent and ethical. By depending on standard human-generated code, many statistical software programs commonly used in economics and the social sciences inadvertently rely on the human willpower of scientists, and inspite of an assumed invincibility, such individuals are nearly necessarily prone to errors and research integrity compromises, as is increasingly clear. Removing the vast majority of arbitrary and subjective data judgments, including the generation of code, from researcher control would free behavioural and social scientists from human limitations. Automating the text annotations that accompany data visualizations in figures and diagrams using emerging natural language processing tools can also free scientists from overconfidence or the temptation to embellish findings. Scientific communities across economics as well as other social science fields should embrace such systems to enhance the integrity and transparency of the next-generation of research