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The rapid expansion of Artificial Intelligence (AI) necessitates a need for educating students to become knowledgeable of AI and aware of its interrelated technical, social, and human implications. The latter (ethics) is particularly important to K-12 students because they may have been interacting with AI through everyday technology without realizing it. They may be targeted by AI generated fake content on social media and may have been victims of algorithm bias in AI applications of facial recognition and predictive policing. To empower students to recognize ethics related issues of AI, this paper reports the design and implementation of a suite of ethics activities embedded in the Developing AI Literacy (DAILy) curriculum. These activities engage students in investigating bias of existing technologies, experimenting with ways to mitigate potential bias, and redesigning the YouTube recommendation system in order to understand different aspects of AI-related ethics issues. Our observations of implementing these lessons among adolescents and exit interviews show that students were highly engaged and became aware of potential harms and consequences of AI tools in everyday life after these ethics lessons.
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The Need for Social Ethics in Interdisciplinary Environmental Science Graduate Programs: Results from a Nation-Wide Survey in the United States
Professionals in environmental fields engage with complex problems that involve stakeholders with different values, different forms of knowledge, and contentious decisions. There is increasing recognition of the need to train graduate students in interdisciplinary environmental science programs (IESPs) in these issues, which we refer to as ‘‘social ethics.’’ A literature review revealed topics and skills that should be included in such training, as well as potential challenges and barriers. From this review, we developed an online survey, which we administered to faculty from 81 United States colleges and universities offering IESPs (480 surveys were completed). Respondents overwhelmingly agreed that IESPs should address values in applying science to policy and management decisions. They also agreed that programs should engage students with issues related to norms of scientific practice. Agreement was slightly less strong that IESPs should train students in skills related to managing value conflicts among different stakeholders. The primary challenges to incorporating social ethics into the curriculum were related to the lack of materials and expertise for delivery, though challenges such as ethics being marginalized in relation to environmental science content were also prominent. Challenges related to students’ interest in ethics were considered less problematic. Respondents believed that social ethics are most effectively delivered when incorporated into existing courses, and they preferred case studies or problem-based learning for delivery. Student competence is generally not assessed, and respondents recognized a need for both curricular materials and assessment tools.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1338614
- PAR ID:
- 10018872
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Science and Engineering Ethics
- ISSN:
- 1353-3452
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-016-9775-0
