Reflective Blog Summary, Summing-up Semester 1
From Broad Curiosities to a Broad Idea
Embarking on the journey of conceptualising a research project in Data and AI Ethics has been a fascinating exploration, weaving through diverse themes, my contemplations embraced a spectrum of ideas, each seemingly disparate yet intricately connected by the overarching umbrella of Data and AI Ethics. The initial spark ignited as I engaged in a broad brainstorming session, delving into the intricate landscape of ethical considerations in the realm of Data and AI. My thoughts, initially scattered and ambitious, circled around a fundamental query: “Before automation, where do we want to go from here?”
Let me explain briefly my line of reasoning to that query, what intrigued me was a combination of: the implications that the design of automation might have, to be more specific, our human biases and perspectives; the concept of trade-offs, concerning what values, ethos we wanted to instill in these emerging technologies. These questions led me to the following thought: if automation and technology amplify its creator’s critical lens of the world and inadvertently that person’s ‘humanity’, including their biases perhaps, then through the creation of such technologies will humanity be coming to a point at which it will have to choose what aspects of humanity it wants to amplify?
Feedback from lecturers and PhD students became guiding stars in this ideation odyssey. Their insights, at times encouraging and at times cautionary, nudged me towards a slightly narrower focus. The subsequent blogs became a canvas for my evolving thoughts, each post weaving a narrative thread through the maze of ideas. The provisional question, “Before automation, where do we want to go from here?” echoed through my reflections, resonating with the broader context of societal values, biases, and the ethical responsibility of shaping AI systems.
In my attempts to crystallise my ideas, I explored the future of work and automation. My reasoning behind this was that automation is coming but how it is implemented into the economy and society is still largely to be decided. My belief is that by harnessing our human attributes and combining them with the knowledge and skills to utilise technology to enhance our productivity, we create roles in which humans and machines/ autonomous systems can co-exist within the world of work. Retrospectively, I believe parallels can be drawn between my reasoning and Zerilli et al’s (2019) concept of ‘complementary coupling’ which describes how human agents could work alongside highly proficient algorithmic tools where a typical work role would be broken up (through task decomposition) and shared between the human agents and the algorithmic tools.
I delved deeper into potential research topics, exploring the evolution of work, work ethics and the impact of the Master-Slave dialectic paradigm on contemporary work culture and social value systems. Specifically, focusing on the concept of the Master-Slave dialectic and its relevance to top- down management styles, employee agency and its effects on society’s cultural dynamics. This urged me to question how humanity could harness technology to enhance productivity without succumbing to a dystopian future of mass unemployment. For what is technology for but not to benefit us humans? This is aligned with Korineck & Stiglitz (2020) work that states that we must steer technological progress in the direction we want to go in.
In essence, the potential project’s core theme at this point was the re-evaluation of work, work ethics and social value systems in the context of historical developments and contemporary challenges, with a specific focus on addressing the potential consequences of automation in the workforce.
The intention behind exploring a new social value system and work ethic was strengthened after reading Nyholm & Smids (2020) work in which they argue that ‘technological complementarity’ should not only be conceived as uniformly good as it may have more complicated and mixed impacts on the well-being of workers. In my opinion, this is where a change of work ethic/ social value-system would make the most impact as steering technological development towards labour-augmenting innovations (Korineck & Stiglitz, 2020) would not be enough to mitigate the effects that Nyholm & Smids (2020) put forward.
However, after seeking feedback from another lecturer, although they liked the idea, they believed that it was too ambitious and that if I wanted to contribute to the academic discourse in a meaningful way, I’d have to bite off a bit less. They suggested focusing on a narrower aspect of the idea, for example, focusing on the master-slave nature of the traditional employment relationship and how AI would change it.
Additionally, after discussing with other academics, another approach I could take would be to bring in theory around differing levels of work and deep thinking. With the AQL framework (on different levels of thinking) in mind, exploring how AI technology could free up and guide human workers to concentrate on tasks that require higher levels of thinking, whilst the tasks requiring lower levels of thought could be automated. My initial thoughts are that parallels could be drawn between this and Zerilli et al’s (2019) concept of ‘complementary coupling’.
So, this is where I’m at regarding my ideation phase for my research project topic, I’ve gone from extremely broad to broad, but I do believe that there’s something in that line of inquiry that is worth exploring, albeit with a much narrower focus.
Lastly, to finish off, due to the nature of the type of topic I’m aiming to research, I think it will be essential to have a written piece and perhaps a further artefact which somehow depicts the concepts within. As for the methodology, I have several ideas as to how I could proceed although it very much depends on the topic I decide to pursue.
References
Korinek, A., Stiglitz, J. E. (2021) ‘Steering Technological Progress’, Research Centre for Economic Analysis. pp. 1-29. Available at: http://rcea.org/wp- content/uploads/2021/04/Future- of-growth/Korinek.pdf (Accessed: 20 October 2023)
Nyholm, S., Smids, J. (2019) ‘Can a Robot Be a Good Colleague?’, Science and Engineering Ethics, 26, pp. 2169-2188.
Zerilli, J., Knott, A., Maclaurin, J., Gavaghan, C. (2019) ‘Algorithmic Decision-Making and the Control Problem’, Minds and Machines, 29. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-019-09513-7
The potential impact of steering AI technological development plan towards labour-augmenting innovations is very clever.