CAREER: Scaffolding Ethical Speculation in Technology Design

Hardly a day passes without a controversy related to technology ethics. From bias in artificial intelligence to privacy violations on social media to systems that enable online harassment, when tech companies and researchers come under fire, people wonder: why are they not thinking about potential harms? Unintended consequences of technology are a significant social issue, both with respect to the harms that can result and widespread impact on perception of the computing field.

However, even when technologists want to do the right thing, doing so requires consideration of future harms. This project will investigate an Ethical Futures Toolkit to help technology development teams be forward-thinking about ethical issues. Because the toolkit can be used in industry practice and in the classroom, this project is expected both to impact technology design directly and to contribute to ethics education for future technologists.

This project will directly intervene in tech industry settings and educating computing professionals of the future. Through these interventions, this project has the potential to transform how technology is designed to better address ethical outcomes.

This project involves complementary methods and goals: (1) deriving a taxonomy of ethical pitfalls based on semantic analysis of media coverage and subsequent public reaction to existing tech ethics controversies; (2) using the taxonomy to drive speculation--the process of forecasting a possible future based on evidence from the past or present--about possible harms to technology users, with a focus on vulnerable and marginalized populations; and (3) analysis of the outcomes of speculative design exercises, focusing on ethical considerations of technologies. Based on insights from these studies, the final stage will be (4) the creation and iterative evaluation of an Ethical Futures Toolkit to be used within design teams to consider ethics early and in forward-thinking ways.

Generating both data and societal impact, this evaluation stage will begin in project-based computing classes, later be integrated into startup competitions that mirror real-world business decision-making, and also be incorporated into work with tech industry partners.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.