Welcome to the Nexus of Ethics, Psychology, Morality, Philosophy and Health Care

Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy
Showing posts with label Data Manipulation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Data Manipulation. Show all posts

Saturday, May 5, 2018

Deep learning: Why it’s time for AI to get philosophical

Catherine Stinson
The Globe and Mail
Originally published March 23, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

Another kind of effort at fixing AI’s ethics problem is the proliferation of crowdsourced ethics projects, which have the commendable goal of a more democratic approach to science. One example is DJ Patil’s Code of Ethics for Data Science, which invites the data-science community to contribute ideas but doesn’t build up from the decades of work already done by philosophers, historians and sociologists of science. Then there’s MIT’s Moral Machine project, which asks the public to vote on questions such as whether a self-driving car with brake failure ought to run over five homeless people rather than one female doctor. Philosophers call these “trolley problems” and have published thousands of books and papers on the topic over the past half-century. Comparing the views of professional philosophers with those of the general public can be eye-opening, as experimental philosophy has repeatedly shown, but simply ignoring the experts and taking a vote instead is irresponsible.

The point of making AI more ethical is so it won’t reproduce the prejudices of random jerks on the internet. Community participation throughout the design process of new AI tools is a good idea, but let’s not do it by having trolls decide ethical questions. Instead, representatives from the populations affected by technological change should be consulted about what outcomes they value most, what needs the technology should address and whether proposed designs would be usable given the resources available. Input from residents of heavily policed neighbourhoods would have revealed that a predictive policing system trained on historical data would exacerbate racial profiling. Having a person of colour on the design team for that soap dispenser should have made it obvious that a peachy skin tone detector wouldn’t work for everyone. Anyone who has had a stalker is sure to notice the potential abuses of selfie drones. Diversifying the pool of talent in AI is part of the solution, but AI also needs outside help from experts in other fields, more public consultation and stronger government oversight.

The information is here.

Monday, September 7, 2015

Science Isn’t Broken

By Christine Aschwanden
FivethirtyeightScience
Originally published August 19, 2015

If you follow the headlines, your confidence in science may have taken a hit lately.

Peer review? More like self-review. An investigation in November uncovered a scam in which researchers were rubber-stamping their own work, circumventing peer review at five high-profile publishers.

Scientific journals? Not exactly a badge of legitimacy, given that the International Journal of Advanced Computer Technology recently accepted for publication a paper titled “Get Me Off Your Fucking Mailing List,” whose text was nothing more than those seven words, repeated over and over for 10 pages. Two other journals allowed an engineer posing as Maggie Simpson and Edna Krabappel to publish a paper, “Fuzzy, Homogeneous Configurations.”

The entire article is here.

Monday, May 18, 2015

Social psychologist relinquishes chair after data manipulation charges

By Frank van Kolfschooten
ScienceInsider
Originally published April 20, 2015

Here are two excerpt:

In the controversial studies, Förster investigated how "priming" by subtle cues—such as a smell or hearing a poem—can change a person's cognitive response. Suspicions against his work were first raised in 2012 by a whistleblower who filed a complaint at UvA. In June 2013, an integrity committee at the university concluded that data patterns in the studies were “practically impossible,” and recommended the publication of “expressions of concern” in the journals involved.

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"I will leave the materialistic and soulless production approach in science," the text reads, however. "I am going my own way now.” Förster didn’t respond to e-mailed questions from ScienceInsider about his decision.

The entire article is here.

Friday, August 22, 2014

Retractions in the scientific literature: is the incidence of research fraud increasing?

By R. Grant Steen
J Med Ethics 2011; 37:249-253 doi:10.1136/jme.2010.040923

Abstract

Scientific papers are retracted for many reasons including fraud (data fabrication or falsification) or error (plagiarism, scientific mistake, ethical problems). Growing attention to fraud in the lay press suggests that the incidence of fraud is increasing.

Introduction

Accusations that research is tainted by bias have become commonplace in the news media. The ClimateGate scandal arose when climate change critics hacked into a research database at the University of East Anglia, evaluated the data without authorisation and went public with accusations that data had been selectively published and perhaps even falsified.1 More recently, a scientist at Harvard has been accused of biasing or falsifying data that show tamarin monkeys can learn algebraic rules.

The entire article is here.

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Harvard report shines light on ex-researcher’s misconduct

By Carolyn Y. Johson
The Boston Globe
Originally published May 30, 2014

When former Harvard psychology professor Marc Hauser was found solely responsible in a series of six scientific misconduct cases in 2012, he distanced himself from the problems, portraying them as an unfortunate consequence of his heavy workload. He said he took responsibility, “whether or not I was directly involved.”

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The 85-page report details instances in which Hauser changed data so that it would show a desired effect. It shows that he more than once rebuffed or downplayed questions and concerns from people in his laboratory about how a result was obtained. The report also describes “a disturbing pattern of misrepresentation of results and shading of truth” and a “reckless disregard for basic scientific standards.”

The entire article is here.

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Fresh Misconduct Charges Hit Dutch Social Psychology

By Frank van Kolfschooten
Science
Originally published May 6, 2014

Scientists here are still searching their souls about two previous scandals--involving Diederik Stapel of Tilburg University in 2011 and Dirk Smeesters of Erasmus University in Rotterdam a year later.

Now they have learned that a national research integrity panel has found evidence of data manipulation in the work of Jens Forster, a social psychologist at the University of Amsterdam (UvA).

The university has already announced that it will request the retraction of one of Forster's articles.

The case is drawing widespread international attention as well, in part because Forster, who's German and came to Amsterdam in 2007, enjoys a sterling reputation.

"He is among the most creative and influential social psychologists of his generation," says Jeffrey Sherman of the University of California, Davis.

The entire article is here, behind a paywall.