AJung Moon

Shalaleh Rismani

2023-10-07

Digital Society (published)

Beyond the ML Model: Applying Safety Engineering Frameworks to Text-to-Image Development

Shalaleh Rismani

Renee Shelby

Andrew J Smart

Renelito Delos Santos

Identifying potential social and ethical risks in emerging machine learning (ML) models and their applications remains challenging. In this … (see more)work, we applied two well-established safety engineering frameworks (FMEA, STPA) to a case study involving text-to-image models at three stages of the ML product development pipeline: data processing, integration of a T2I model with other models, and use. Results of our analysis demonstrate the safety frameworks – both of which are not designed explicitly examine social and ethical risks – can uncover failure and hazards that pose social and ethical risks. We discovered a broad range of failures and hazards (i.e., functional, social, and ethical) by analyzing interactions (i.e., between different ML models in the product, between the ML product and user, and between development teams) and processes (i.e., preparation of training data or workflows for using an ML service/product). Our findings underscore the value and importance of examining beyond an ML model in examining social and ethical risks, especially when we have minimal information about an ML model.

2023-08-29

Proceedings of the 2023 AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society (published)

arxiv.org

Sociotechnical Harms of Algorithmic Systems: Scoping a Taxonomy for Harm Reduction

Renee Shelby

Shalaleh Rismani

Kathryn Henne

Paul Nicholas

N'Mah Yilla-Akbari

Jess Gallegos

Andrew J Smart

Emilio Garcia

Gurleen Virk

2023-08-29

Proceedings of the 2023 AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society (published)

arxiv.org

What does it mean to be a responsible AI practitioner: An ontology of roles and skills

Shalaleh Rismani

With the growing need to regulate AI systems across a wide variety of application domains, a new set of occupations has emerged in the indus… (see more)try. The so-called responsible Artificial Intelligence (AI) practitioners or AI ethicists are generally tasked with interpreting and operationalizing best practices for ethical and safe design of AI systems. Due to the nascent nature of these roles, however, it is unclear to future employers and aspiring AI ethicists what specific function these roles serve and what skills are necessary to serve the functions. Without clarity on these, we cannot train future AI ethicists with meaningful learning objectives. In this work, we examine what responsible AI practitioners do in the industry and what skills they employ on the job. We propose an ontology of existing roles alongside skills and competencies that serve each role. We created this ontology by examining the job postings for such roles over a two-year period (2020-2022) and conducting expert interviews with fourteen individuals who currently hold such a role in the industry. Our ontology contributes to business leaders looking to build responsible AI teams and provides educators with a set of competencies that an AI ethics curriculum can prioritize.

2023-08-29

Proceedings of the 2023 AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society (published)

arxiv.org

The potential for co-operatives to mitigate AI ethics catastrophes: perspectives from media analysis

David Marino

Would the world have seen less AI-related scandals if more AI companies operated as co-operatives? As a response to multiple high profile te… (see more)ch scandals within the last decade, there has been an increased call for introducing more accountability in the AI industry. However, it is unclear to what degree the proposed efforts have been or will be effective in practice. The question remains whether these incremental, multi-stakeholder AI ethics efforts are in fact trying to address a fundamentally systemic issue inherent to the existing corporate power structure. As an attempt to address this question, we gain an understanding of the major themes in high profile AI-related catastrophes in the last four years (2018–2021) through an inductive media analysis. We then investigate how the principle of democratic gov-ernance and distributive executive power - core to co-operative organization structure - could have prevented or mitigated the contributing factors of the reported events. We find that the vast majority (71%) of the recent AI ethics scandals are not the result of a lack of knowledge or tools, but attributed to power dynamics that hinder the ability of internal stakeholders from taking action. We present the co-operative governance structure as a possible mitigating solution to addressing future AI ethics catastrophes, and provide a critical look at practical challenges inherent to AI co-operatives.

2023-05-18

Ethics: An International Journal of Social, Political, and Legal Philosophy (published)

From Plane Crashes to Algorithmic Harm: Applicability of Safety Engineering Frameworks for Responsible ML

Shalaleh Rismani

Renee Shelby

Andrew J Smart

Edgar Jatho

Joshua A. Kroll

2023-04-19

Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (published)

openreview.net

Roboethics as a Design Challenge: Lessons Learned from the Roboethics to Design and Development Competition

Jimin Rhim

Cheng Lin

Alexander Werner

Brandon DeHart

Vivian Qiang

Shalaleh Rismani

How do we make concrete progress towards de-signing robots that can navigate ethically sensitive contexts? Almost two decades after the word… (see more) ‘roboethics’ was coined, translating interdisciplinary roboethics discussions into techni-cal design still remains a daunting task. This paper describes our first attempt at addressing these challenges through a roboethics-themed design competition. The design competition setting allowed us to (a) formulate ethical considerations as an engineering design task that anyone with basic programming skills can tackle; and (b) develop a prototype evaluation scheme that incorporates diverse normative perspectives of multiple stakeholders. The initial implementation of the competition was held online at the RO-MAN 2021 conference. The competition task involved programming a simulated mobile robot (TIAGo) that delivers items for individuals in the home environment, where many of these tasks involve ethically sensitive con-texts (e.g., an underage family member asks for an alcoholic drink). This paper outlines our experiences implementing the competition and the lessons we learned. We highlight design competitions as a promising mechanism to enable a new wave of roboethics research equipped with technical design solutions.

2022-05-23

2022 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) (published)

The Role of Robotics in Achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals - The Experts' Meeting at the 2021 IEEE/RSJ IROS Workshop [Industry Activities]

Vincent Mai

Bram Vanderborght

Tamás Haidegger

Alaa Khamis

Niraj Bhargava

Dominik B.O. Boesl

Katleen Gabriels

An Jacobs

Robin Murphy

Yasushi Nakauchi

Edson Prestes

Bhavani Rao R.

Ricardo Vinuesa

Carl-Maria Mörch

The development and deployment of robotic technologies can have an important role in efforts to achieve the United Nations’ (UN) Sustainab… (see more)le Development Goals (SDGs)—with both enabling and inhibiting impacts. During a workshop at the 2021 IEEE/Robotics Society of Japan International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2021), experts from various disciplines analyzed the role of robotics in achieving the SDGs. This article provides a summary of the most important outcomes of the workshop. During the workshop panels, the variety of roles that robots can play in enabling the SDGs was underlined. The panelists discussed the challenges to the adoption of robots and to their deployment at their full potential. The probable undesirable effects of robots were also considered, and the panelists suggested approaches to correctly design SDG-relevant robotic solutions. Governance frameworks were also discussed, with respect to their contents as well as the challenges to build them. The role of military funding was briefly analyzed. Finally, several proposals for actions and policies were made. The contents of the workshop, including contributing papers and videos from the panelists, as well as additional information about future initiatives regarding robotics and the SDGs, are available at www.sustainablerobotics.org.

2022-03-01

IEEE Robotics Autom. Mag. (published)

The Role of Robotics in Achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals - The Experts' Meeting at the 2021 IEEE/RSJ IROS Workshop [Industry Activities]

Vincent Mai

Bram Vanderborght

Tamás P. Haidegger

Alaa M. Khamis

Niraj Bhargava

Dominik B. O. Boesl

K. Gabriels

An Jacobs

R. Murphy

Yasushi Nakauchi

Edson Prestes

Bhavani Rao R.

Ricardo Vinuesa

Carl-Maria Mörch

2022-03-01

IEEE Robotics Autom. Mag. (published)

Sociotechnical Harms: Scoping a Taxonomy for Harm Reduction

Renee Shelby

Shalaleh Rismani

Kathryn Henne

Paul Nicholas

N'mah Fodiatu Yilla

Jess Gallegos

Andrew J Smart

Emilio Garcia

Gurleen Virk

2022-01-01

arXiv.org (preprint)

What does it mean to be an AI Ethicist: An ontology of existing roles

Shalaleh Rismani

With the increasing adoption of Artificial Intelligence systems (AIS) in various application and the growing efforts to regulate such system… (see more)s, a new set of occupations has emerged in the industry. This new set of roles take different titles and hold varying responsibilities. However, the individuals in these roles are tasked with interpreting and operationalizing best practices for developing ethical and safe AI systems. We will broadly refer to this new set of occupations as AI ethicists and recognize that they often hold a specific role in the intersection of technology development, business needs, and societal implications. In this work, we examine what it means to be an AI ethicist in the industry and propose an ontology of existing roles under this broad title along with their required competencies. We create this ontology by examining the job postings for such roles over the past two years and conduct expert interviews with fourteen individuals who currently hold such a role in the industry. The proposed ontology will inform executives and leaders who are looking to build responsible AI teams and provide educators the necessary information for creating new learning objectives and curriculum.

2022-01-01

arXiv.org (preprint)

What does it mean to be an AI Ethicist: An ontology of existing roles

Shalaleh Rismani

With the increasing adoption of Artificial Intelligence systems (AIS) in various application and the growing efforts to regulate such system… (see more)s, a new set of occupations has emerged in the industry. This new set of roles take different titles and hold varying responsibilities. However, the individuals in these roles are tasked with interpreting and operationalizing best practices for developing ethical and safe AI systems. We will broadly refer to this new set of occupations as AI ethicists and recognize that they often hold a specific role in the intersection of technology development, business needs, and societal implications. In this work, we examine what it means to be an AI ethicist in the industry and propose an ontology of existing roles under this broad title along with their required competencies. We create this ontology by examining the job postings for such roles over the past two years and conduct expert interviews with fourteen individuals who currently hold such a role in the industry. The proposed ontology will inform executives and leaders who are looking to build responsible AI teams and provide educators the necessary information for creating new learning objectives and curriculum.

2022-01-01

arXiv.org (preprint)