70 research outputs found
Autonomous vehicles and the ethical tension between occupant and non-occupant safety
Given that the creation and deployment of autonomous vehicles is likely to continue, it is important to explore the ethical responsibilities of designers, manufacturers, operators, and regulators of the technology. We specifically focus on the ethical responsibilities surrounding autonomous vehicles that these stakeholders have to protect the safety of non-occupants, meaning individuals who are around the vehicles while they are operating. The term “non-occupants” includes, but is not limited to, pedestrians and cyclists. We are particularly interested in how to assign moral responsibility for the safety of non-occupants when autonomous vehicles are deployed in a complex, land-based transportation system
Recurrence of the Same? Intelligent Design and the Biology Classroom
As the complex and heated debates between evolution's supporters and its critics continue, teachers and school boards are struggling to figure out how to handle the issue of the origin of human life within biology classrooms. Controversy circulating around evolution had caused some states, including Georgia, to remove the word "evolution" from the science curriculum and evade teaching about the subject matter. Recently, critics have offered forward a view called intelligent design (ID), which purports to illustrate conceptual and empirical shortcomings in evolutionary theory. Intelligent design supporters argue that students should be made aware of these shortcomings and suggest that alternatives to evolution need to be taught, which may include intelligent design. Yet a key issue that needs to be resolved is whether it is a sound pedagogical approach to teach intelligent design alongside evolution, which may in part be figured out by determining whether it is a true rival (or perhaps compliment) to evolutionary theory. In this article, my primary aim is not to proclaim that the theory of intelligent design is false. Rather, it is to argue that intelligent design does not belong in high school biology classrooms at this point in time
Autonomous Vehicles and the Ethical Tension Between Occupant and Non-Occupant Safety
Autonomous vehicle manufacturers, people inside an autonomous vehicle (occupants), and people outside the vehicle (non-occupants) are among the distinct stakeholders when addressing ethical issues inherent in systems that include autonomous vehicles. As responses to recent tragic cases illustrate, advocates for autonomous vehicles tend to focus on occupant safety, sometimes to the exclusion of non-occupant safety. Thus, we aim to examine ethical issues associated with non-occupant safety, including pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists, and riders of motorized scooters. We also explore the ethical implications of technical and policy ideas that some might propose to improve non-occupant safety. In addition, if safety (writ large) is truly the paramount priority for autonomous vehicle advocates, we contend that autonomous public transportation should be considered as a more effective and less expensive way to improve public safety
Robotic Nudges: The Ethics of Engineering a More Socially Just Human Being
Copyright © 2015 Springer-VerlagThe time is nearing when robots are going to become a pervasive feature of our personal lives.
They are already continuously operating
in industrial, domestic,
and military sectors. But
a
facet
of their operation that has not quite reached
its full potential is their involvement in our day-to-day routines as servants, caregivers, companions, and perhaps friends.
It is clear that
the
multiple forms of
robots
already in existence and in the process of being designed
will have a
profound
impact
on
human life.
In fact, the motivation for their creation is largely shaped by
their
ability
to do so. Encouraging patients to take medications,
enabling
children to socialize,
and protecting the elderly from hazards within a
living space
is only a small
sampling
of how
they could
interact with
humans. Their
seemingly
boundless
potential stems in part
from
the
possibility of their
omnipresence but also because they
can be
physically
instantiated, i.e., they
are embodied in the real world, unlike many other devices.
The extent of a robot’s influence on
our lives hinges
in large part
on
which design pathway the robot’s creator decides to pursue
.
The
principal focus
of
this article
is
to
generate discussion about
the
ethical acceptability of
allowing
designers
to
construct
companion
robots that
nudge
a user
in a particular behavioral
direction
(and
if so, under which circumstances). More specifically,
we will
delineate
key issues
related
to the
ethics
of designing robots whose
deliberate purpose is to
nudge
human
users
towards
displaying
greater concern for their
fellow
human beings, including by
becoming
more socially just.
Important
facets of this discussion include whether
a robot’s “nudging
” behavior should occur with or without the user’s awareness and how much control the user
should exert
over it
The Impact of Community Engagement on Undergraduate Social Responsibility Attitudes
The literature on student development cautions that social responsibility attitudes may stagnate or decline as students proceed through college. Given the importance of students’ future professional obligations to society, identifying ways to reverse this trend is crucial. In turn, an important aim of this study, situated at a large public university, is to evaluate the prospects of community engagement as a strategy to foster professional social responsibility development. The study uses longitudinal results from an instrument known as the Generalized Professional Responsibility Assessment (GPRA) to assess personal and professional social responsibility attitudes. The study’s sample includes 128 students who completed a survey both in 2017, when entering college, and in 2019, when near the midpoint of college. Findings indicate that social responsibility attitudes remain stagnant, and that students over that time period attach more importance to salary as compared to helping people when considering job priorities. Yet, results reveal that increased community engagement predicts growth in social responsibility attitudes, even when controlling for students’ pre-college social responsibility attitudes and demographic characteristics. Further, a novel contribution of this study is a focus on two sub-categories of community engagement: discipline-based and peer-based. Discipline-based community engagement appears to foster professional aspects of social responsibility, while community engagement experiences tied to peer interaction appear to exert greater impacts for non-White students. An observation derived from the study is that community engagement, particularly when it connects to a student’s discipline or draws on peer influences, could be an effective strategy to promote social responsibility development
Graph-based analysis of the metabolic exchanges between two co-resident intracellular symbionts, baumannia cicadellinicola and sulcia muelleri with their insect host, homalodisca coagulata
International audienceEndosymbiotic bacteria from different species can live inside cells of the same eukaryotic organism. Metabolic exchanges occur between host and bacteria but also between different endocytobionts. Since a complete genome annotation is available for both, we built the metabolic network of two endosymbiotic bacteria, Sulcia muelleri and Baumannia cicadellinicola, that live inside specific cells of the sharpshooter Homalodisca coagulata and studied the metabolic exchanges involving transfers of carbon atoms between the three. We automatically determined the set of metabolites potentially exogenously acquired (seeds) for both metabolic networks. We show that the number of seeds needed by both bacteria in the carbon metabolism is extremely reduced. Moreover, only three seeds are common to both metabolic networks, indicating that the complementarity of the two metabolisms is not only manifested in the metabolic capabilities of each bacterium, but also by their different use of the same environment. Furthermore, our results show that the carbon metabolism of S. muelleri may be completely independent of the metabolic network of B. cicadellinicola. On the contrary, the carbon metabolism of the latter appears dependent on the metabolism of S. muelleri, at least for two essential amino acids, threonine and lysine. Next, in order to define which subsets of seeds (precursor sets) are sufficient to produce the metabolites involved in a symbiotic function, we used a graph-based method, PITUFO, that we recently developed. Our results highly refine our knowledge about the complementarity between the metabolisms of the two bacteria and their host. We thus indicate seeds that appear obligatory in the synthesis of metabolites are involved in the symbiotic function. Our results suggest both B. cicadellinicola and S. muelleri may be completely independent of the metabolites provided by the co-resident endocytobiont to produce the carbon backbone of the metabolites provided to the symbiotic system (., thr and lys are only exploited by B. cicadellinicola to produce its proteins)
Responsible Conduct of Research: An Overview
Presented on October 26, 2010 from 5:00 pm-6:00 pm in the Skiles Building room 343 on the Georgia Tech campus.Runtime: 54:49 minute
Intelligent Design in the Classroom?
Presentation given in the Library and Information Center's Neely Gallery.Runtime: 86:01 minutesControversy continues to circulate about evolution, raising the issue
of whether public schools are the appropriate forum for teaching about the
subject matter. In recent years, critics have offered forward a view called
intelligent design, which seeks to illustrate alleged shortcomings in
evolutionary theory. Intelligent design supporters argue that students should
be made aware of evolution’s failings and suggest that alternatives to evolution
need to be taught, which may include intelligent design. Yet a key issue that
must be resolved is whether a proper educational approach in the biology
classroom includes teaching intelligent design alongside evolution
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