Science and Engineering Ethics最新文献

{"title":"Research Misconduct Investigations in China's Science Funding System.","authors":"Li Tang, Linan Wang, Guangyuan Hu","doi":"10.1007/s11948-023-00459-9","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11948-023-00459-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>As stewards of public money, government funding agencies have the obligation and responsibility to uphold the integrity of funded research. Despite an increasing amount of empirical studies examining research-related misconduct, a majority of these studies focus on retracted publications. How agencies spot funding-relevant wrongdoing and what sanctions the offenders face remain largely unexplored. This is particularly true for public funding agencies in emerging science powers. To amend this oversight, we retrieved and analyzed all publicized investigation results from China's largest basic research funding agency over the period from 2005 to 2021. Our findings reveal that both the \"police patrol\" and \"fire alarm\" approaches are used to identify misconduct and deter funding-related fraud in China. The principal triggers for investigations are journal article retractions, whistleblowing, and plagiarism detection software. Among the six funding-related misconduct types publicized and punished, the top three are: (1) fraudulent papers, (2) information fabrication and/or falsification in the research proposal, and (3) proposal plagiarism. The most common administrative sanctions are debarment and reclamation of grants. This article argues that more systematic research and cooperation among stakeholders is needed to cultivate research integrity in emerging science powers like China. Specific training and education should be provided for young scientists to help them avoid the pitfall of academic misconduct.</p>","PeriodicalId":49564,"journal":{"name":"Science and Engineering Ethics","volume":"29 6","pages":"39"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138292247","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Survey Study on Knowledge and Attitude Toward the Ethics Committee and Research Ethical Practices Among Researchers From Kuwait.","authors":"Rashmi Shiju, Smitha Thankachan, Ayesha Akhil, Prem Sharma, Abdullah Bennakhi","doi":"10.1007/s11948-023-00458-w","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11948-023-00458-w","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The integrity of research findings and the safety of participants who voluntarily consent to participate in research studies must be assured through ethical approaches. Additionally, ethical guidelines and the ethics committee protect participants from unfair practices by the research team. Therefore, this study aims to assess the knowledge and attitudes toward the ethics committee and research ethical practices among the researchers of a diabetes institute in Kuwait. An anonymous survey was conducted through an online questionnaire using Microsoft Forms. The study had a response rate of 86%. Among the 55 participants in this study, 43 (78%) had ethics training. Researchers involved in more than four research projects were shown to have a much higher awareness of the ethics committee and its role than researchers involved in no projects. Approximately 90% of researchers had training in research ethics and were knowledgeable about informed consent forms and assent, as well as additional protections for vulnerable populations. Ninety-eight percent of respondents were of the view that an ethics committee was necessary. Our study concluded that most of the researchers at the institute were aware of the role of the ethics committee, and ethical principles. However, we recommend that continuous and customized training on research ethics should be provided.</p>","PeriodicalId":49564,"journal":{"name":"Science and Engineering Ethics","volume":"29 6","pages":"37"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-10-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10602982/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50163388","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Playing Brains: The Ethical Challenges Posed by Silicon Sentience and Hybrid Intelligence in DishBrain.","authors":"Stephen R Milford, David Shaw, Georg Starke","doi":"10.1007/s11948-023-00457-x","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11948-023-00457-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The convergence of human and artificial intelligence is currently receiving considerable scholarly attention. Much debate about the resulting Hybrid Minds focuses on the integration of artificial intelligence into the human brain through intelligent brain-computer interfaces as they enter clinical use. In this contribution we discuss a complementary development: the integration of a functional in vitro network of human neurons into an in silico computing environment.To do so, we draw on a recent experiment reporting the creation of silico-biological intelligence as a case study (Kagan et al., 2022b). In this experiment, multielectrode arrays were plated with stem cell-derived human neurons, creating a system which the authors call DishBrain. By embedding the system into a virtual game-world, neural clusters were able to receive electrical input signals from the game-world and to respond appropriately with output signals from pre-assigned motor regions. Using this design, the authors demonstrate how the DishBrain self-organises and successfully learns to play the computer game 'Pong', exhibiting 'sentient' and intelligent behaviour in its virtual environment.The creation of such hybrid, silico-biological intelligence raises numerous ethical challenges. Following the neuroscientific framework embraced by the authors themselves, we discuss the arising ethical challenges in the context of Karl Friston's Free Energy Principle, focusing on the risk of creating synthetic phenomenology. Following the DishBrain's creator's neuroscientific assumptions, we highlight how DishBrain's design may risk bringing about artificial suffering and argue for a congruently cautious approach to such synthetic biological intelligence.</p>","PeriodicalId":49564,"journal":{"name":"Science and Engineering Ethics","volume":"29 6","pages":"38"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-10-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10602981/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50163389","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Systematic Review of the 2016 National Academy of Engineering Exemplary Ethics Programs: Revisions to a Coding Framework.","authors":"Justin L Hess, Alison J Kerr, Athena Lin, Andrew Chung","doi":"10.1007/s11948-023-00456-y","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11948-023-00456-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Engineering ethics is a required aspect of accredited ABET programs, but there is widespread variation in how ethics is taught, to what ends, and how those ends are assessed. This variation makes it challenging to identify practices for teaching ethics to engineers aligned with extant practices in the field. In this study, we revise a recent coding framework by reviewing exemplary engineering ethics programs recognized by the National Academy of Engineering in 2016, or what we refer to as \"exemplars.\" We pursue two primary objectives: (1) To apply and revise a prior coding framework to codify ethics learning objectives, instructional strategies, and assessment strategies in engineering education; and (2) To use the revised coding framework to identify trends in learning objectives, instructional strategies, and assessment strategies of NAE exemplars. We employ systemic review procedures to update the coding framework using 24 of 25 exemplars as a data source. The updated framework includes four primary categories associated with learning objectives, instructional strategies, assessment data collection strategies, and assessment design characteristics. Results indicate that ethical sensitivity or awareness was present in every exemplar as a learning objective, often alongside ethical reasoning-based learning objectives and the formation of professional skills. Exemplars employed numerous instructional strategies in tandem, as we coded eight out of 18 instructional strategies among at least half of the exemplars. Assignments/homework and summative reflections were the most oft-used sources of assessment data. Due to our challenges in coding assessment approaches, we offer practical suggestions for assessing engineering ethics instruction which are based on many of our coding discussions. We hope that this coding framework, the results classifying exemplary features of the NAE programs, and our practical suggestions can guide future instructors as they design, classify, assess, and report their approaches to engineering ethics education.</p>","PeriodicalId":49564,"journal":{"name":"Science and Engineering Ethics","volume":"29 6","pages":"36"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49693344","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mary Blair-Loy and Erin A. Cech: Misconceiving Merit: Paradoxes in Excellence and Devotion in Academic Science and Engineering : University of Chicago Press, 2022.","authors":"Andrea R Gammon","doi":"10.1007/s11948-023-00455-z","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11948-023-00455-z","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49564,"journal":{"name":"Science and Engineering Ethics","volume":"29 5","pages":"35"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-10-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41217831","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Genetically Engineered Foods and Moral Absolutism: A Representative Study from Germany.","authors":"Johanna Jauernig,&nbsp;Matthias Uhl,&nbsp;Gabi Waldhof","doi":"10.1007/s11948-023-00454-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11948-023-00454-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>There is an ongoing debate about genetic engineering (GE) in food production. Supporters argue that it makes crops more resilient to stresses, such as drought or pests, and should be considered by researchers as a technology to address issues of global food security, whereas opponents put forward that GE crops serve only the economic interests of transnational agrifood-firms and have not yet delivered on their promises to address food shortage and nutrient supply. To address discourse failure regarding the GE debate, research needs to understand better what drives the divergent positions and which moral attitudes fuel the mental models of GE supporters and opponents. Hence, this study investigates moral attitudes regarding GE opposition and support in Germany. Results show that GE opponents are significantly more absolutist than supporters and significantly less likely to hold outcome-based views. Furthermore, GE opponents are more willing to donate for preventing GE admission than supporters are willing to donate for promoting GE admission. Our results shed light on why the divide between opponents and supporters in the German GE debate could remain stark and stable for so long.</p>","PeriodicalId":49564,"journal":{"name":"Science and Engineering Ethics","volume":"29 5","pages":"34"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10482798/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10185973","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"How Smart are Smart Materials? A Conceptual and Ethical Analysis of Smart Lifelike Materials for the Design of Regenerative Valve Implants.","authors":"Anne-Floor J de Kanter, Karin R Jongsma, Carlijn V C Bouten, Annelien L Bredenoord","doi":"10.1007/s11948-023-00453-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11948-023-00453-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>It may soon become possible not just to replace, but to re-grow healthy tissues after injury or disease, because of innovations in the field of Regenerative Medicine. One particularly promising innovation is a regenerative valve implant to treat people with heart valve disease. These implants are fabricated from so-called 'smart', 'lifelike' materials. Implanted inside a heart, these implants stimulate re-growth of a healthy, living heart valve. While the technological development advances, the ethical implications of this new technology are still unclear and a clear conceptual understanding of the notions 'smart' and 'lifelike' is currently lacking. In this paper, we explore the conceptual and ethical implications of the development of smart lifelike materials for the design of regenerative implants, by analysing heart valve implants as a showcase. In our conceptual analysis, we show that the materials are considered 'smart' because they can communicate with human tissues, and 'lifelike' because they are structurally similar to these tissues. This shows that regenerative valve implants become intimately integrated in the living tissues of the human body. As such, they manifest the ontological entanglement of body and technology. In our ethical analysis, we argue this is ethically significant in at least two ways: It exacerbates the irreversibility of the implantation procedure, and it might affect the embodied experience of the implant recipient. With our conceptual and ethical analysis, we aim to contribute to responsible development of smart lifelike materials and regenerative implants.</p>","PeriodicalId":49564,"journal":{"name":"Science and Engineering Ethics","volume":"29 5","pages":"33"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10480256/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10550111","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"AI as an Epistemic Technology.","authors":"Ramón Alvarado","doi":"10.1007/s11948-023-00451-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11948-023-00451-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In this paper I argue that Artificial Intelligence and the many data science methods associated with it, such as machine learning and large language models, are first and foremost epistemic technologies. In order to establish this claim, I first argue that epistemic technologies can be conceptually and practically distinguished from other technologies in virtue of what they are designed for, what they do and how they do it. I then proceed to show that unlike other kinds of technology (including other epistemic technologies) AI can be uniquely positioned as an epistemic technology in that it is primarily designed, developed and deployed to be used in epistemic contexts such as inquiry, it is specifically designed, developed and deployed to manipulate epistemic content such as data, and it is designed, developed and deployed to do so particularly through epistemic operations such as prediction and analysis. As has been shown in recent work in the philosophy and ethics of AI (Alvarado, AI and Ethics, 2022a), understanding AI as an epistemic technology will also have significant implications for important debates regarding our relationship to AI technologies. This paper includes a brief overview of such implications, particularly those pertaining to explainability, opacity, trust and even epistemic harms related to AI technologies.</p>","PeriodicalId":49564,"journal":{"name":"Science and Engineering Ethics","volume":"29 5","pages":"32"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10170138","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Criticizing Danaher's Approach to Superficial State Deception.","authors":"Maciej Musiał","doi":"10.1007/s11948-023-00452-2","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s11948-023-00452-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>If existing or future robots appear to have some capacity, state or property, how can we determine whether they truly have it or whether we are deceived into believing so? John Danaher addresses this question by formulating his approach to what he refers to as superficial state deception (SSD) from the perspective of his theory termed ethical behaviourism (EB), which was initially designed to determine the moral status of robots. In summary, Danaher believes that focusing on behaviour is sufficient to determine whether SSD occurs. My general claim is that Danaher's approach to SSD based on EB is implausible since it results in the impossibility of conceptualizing SSD, e.g., it does not enable determining whether or not SSD occurs in a particular case. Moreover, I show how Danaher's approach to SSD needs to be transformed to become plausible. To make my point, I (1) examine the main features of EB and distinguish its two versions by showing how Danaher revised the original EB in response to criticism; (2) discuss Danaher's approach to the problem of deception from the perspective of EB; (3) criticize that approach by showing that it requires revisions analogous to those that have already been recommended in reference to EB, and (4) propose an alternative method for determining the presence of SSD that covers diverse, plausible approaches to SSD.</p>","PeriodicalId":49564,"journal":{"name":"Science and Engineering Ethics","volume":"29 5","pages":"31"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-08-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10435631/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10539189","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Caring in an Algorithmic World: Ethical Perspectives for Designers and Developers in Building AI Algorithms to Fight Fake News.","authors":"Galit Wellner,&nbsp;Dmytro Mykhailov","doi":"10.1007/s11948-023-00450-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-023-00450-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article suggests several design principles intended to assist in the development of ethical algorithms exemplified by the task of fighting fake news. Although numerous algorithmic solutions have been proposed, fake news still remains a wicked socio-technical problem that begs not only engineering but also ethical considerations. We suggest employing insights from ethics of care while maintaining its speculative stance to ask how algorithms and design processes would be different if they generated care and fight fake news. After reviewing the major characteristics of ethics of care and the phases of care, we offer four algorithmic design principles. The first principle highlights the need to develop a strategy to deal with fake news on the part of the software designers. The second principle calls for the involvement of various stakeholders in the design processes in order to increase the chances of successfully fighting fake news. The third principle suggests allowing end-users to report on fake news. Finally, the last principle proposes keeping the end-user updated on the treatment in the suspected news items. Implementing these principles as care practices can render the developmental process more ethically oriented as well as improve the ability to fight fake news.</p>","PeriodicalId":49564,"journal":{"name":"Science and Engineering Ethics","volume":"29 4","pages":"30"},"PeriodicalIF":3.7,"publicationDate":"2023-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10033520","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}