Institutional Transformation: Anticipating Undesirable Consequences of Computer Science Research

计算机科学研究极大地促进了技术进步，但它也导致了对社会产生意想不到的、有时是有害的影响的发展。对于设计计算创新的研究人员来说，由于缺乏对如何调查这些后果的知识和支持，预测这些创新的不良后果可能是困难的。因此，本研究项目的目的是使计算机科学研究人员能够识别和评估其创新的潜在不良后果。该项目将开发和评估一种预测数字技术不良后果的新方法。这种方法将帮助计算机科学研究人员更好地理解检查其工作伦理维度的过程和资源。这个项目有可能改变计算机专业和其他学术部门如何将伦理学融入他们的课程。研究小组的目标是开发和测试干预措施的有效性，这些干预措施可以在项目方法仍然可行的情况下，尽早激励人们预测计算机科学研究项目的不良后果。具体而言，该小组将设计一个基于网络的系统，使计算机科学研究人员能够：(a)获取并提供关于计算研究项目的负面社会影响和经验教训的案例研究，(b)就计算项目的不良后果进行头脑风暴，并预先登记头脑风暴活动的结果，包括可能的缓解战略，(c)让其他研究人员参与头脑风暴和审查伦理预先登记，以及(d)有机会参加由具有广泛学术背景的个人组成的伦理咨询委员会。该团队方法的一个关键组成部分是，伦理预注册将由其他研究小组进行审查，这促进了小组之间的知识共享和合作。该项目由计算机和信息科学与工程理事会资助，并由社会、行为和经济科学理事会的ER2计划管理。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Computer Science research has greatly contributed to technological progress, but it has also led to developments that have had unintended and sometimes harmful effects on society. For the researchers designing computing innovations, anticipating undesirable consequences of those innovations can be difficult due to a lack of knowledge and support for how to investigate such consequences. Thus, the aim of this research project is to enable computer science researchers to identify and assess the potential undesirable consequences of their innovations. The project will develop and evaluate a new approach to anticipating undesirable consequences of digital technology. The approach will help computing science researchers better understand the processes and resources for examining the ethical dimensions of their work. The project has the potential to transform how computing programs and other academic departments integrate ethics into their curriculum. The research team aims to develop and test the effectiveness of interventions that incentivize anticipating undesirable consequences of computer science research projects as early as possible, when pivoting a project’s approach is still feasible. Specifically, the team will design a web-based system that enables computer science researchers to: (a) access and contribute case studies of negative societal impacts of computing research projects and lessons learned, (b) brainstorm about undesirable consequences of computing projects and preregister the outcome of the brainstorming activity including potential mitigation strategies, (c) involve other researchers in the brainstorming and review of the ethics preregistration, and (d) have access to an ethics advisory board of individuals with a broad range of scholarly backgrounds. A key component of the team’s approach is that ethics preregistrations will be reviewed by other research groups, which fosters knowledge sharing and collaboration among the groups.This project is funded by the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering and managed by the ER2 Program of the Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences.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.