Ethics working group to hash out what kind of company service is off limits

Chris Marquette
www.rollcall.com
Originally published July 22, 2019

A House Ethics Committee working group on Thursday will discuss proposed regulations to govern what kind of roles lawmakers may perform in companies, part of a push to head off the kind of ethical issues that led to the federal indictment of Rep. Chris Collins, who is accused of trading insider information while simultaneously serving as a company board member and public official.

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House Resolution 6 created a new clause in the Code of Official Conduct — set to take effect Jan. 1, 2020 — that prohibits members, delegates, resident commissioners, officers or employees in the House from serving as an officer or director of any public company.

The clause required the Ethics Committee to develop by Dec. 31 regulations addressing other prohibited service or positions that could lead to conflicts of interest.

The info is here.

Ethical considerations in assessment and behavioral treatment of obesity: Issues and practice implications for clinical health psychologists

Williamson, T. M., Rash, J. A., Campbell, T. S., & Mothersill, K. (2019).
Professional Psychology: Research and Practice. Advance online publication.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pro0000249

Abstract

The obesity epidemic in the United States and Canada has been accompanied by an increased demand on behavioral health specialists to provide comprehensive behavior therapy for weight loss (BTWL) to individuals with obesity. Clinical health psychologists are optimally positioned to deliver BTWL because of their advanced competencies in multimodal assessment, training in evidence-based methods of behavior change, and proficiencies in interdisciplinary collaboration. Although published guidelines provide recommendations for optimal design and delivery of BTWL (e.g., behavior modification, cognitive restructuring, and mindfulness practice; group-based vs. individual therapy), guidelines on ethical issues that may arise during assessment and treatment remain conspicuously absent. This article reviews clinical practice guidelines, ethical codes (i.e., the Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists and the American Psychological Association Ethical Principles of Psychologists), and the extant literature to highlight obesity-specific ethical considerations for psychologists who provide assessment and BTWL in health care settings. Five key themes emerge from the literature: (a) informed consent (instilling realistic treatment expectations; reasonable alternatives to BTWL; privacy and confidentiality); (b) assessment (using a biopsychosocial approach; selecting psychological tests); (c) competence and scope of practice (self-assessment; collaborative care); (d) recognition of personal bias and discrimination (self-examination, diversity); and (e) maximizing treatment benefit while minimizing harm. Practical recommendations grounded in the American Psychological Association’s competency training model for clinical health psychologists are discussed to assist practitioners in addressing and mitigating ethical issues in practice.

First Steps Towards an Ethics of Robots and Artificial Intelligence

John Tasioulas
King's College London

Abstract

This article offers an overview of the main first-order ethical questions raised by robots and Artificial Intelligence (RAIs) under five broad rubrics: functionality, inherent significance, rights and responsibilities, side-effects, and threats. The first letter of each rubric taken together conveniently generates the acronym FIRST. Special attention is given to the rubrics of functionality and inherent significance given the centrality of the former and the tendency to neglect the latter in virtue of its somewhat nebulous and contested character. In addition to exploring some illustrative issues arising under each rubric, the article also emphasizes a number of more general themes. These include: the multiplicity of interacting levels on which ethical questions about RAIs arise, the need to recognize that RAIs potentially implicate the full gamut of human values (rather than exclusively or primarily some readily identifiable sub-set of ethical or legal principles), and the need for practically salient ethical reflection on RAIs to be informed by a realistic appreciation of their existing and foreseeable capacities.

From the section: Ethical Questions: Frames and Levels

Difficult questions arise as to how best to integrate these three modes of regulating RAIs, and there is a serious worry about the tendency of industry-based codes of ethics to upstage democratically enacted law in this domain, especially given the considerable political clout wielded by the small number of technology companies that are driving RAI-related developments. However, this very clout creates the ever-present danger that powerful corporations may be able to shape any resulting laws in ways favourable to their interests rather than the common good (Nemitz 2018, 7). Part of the difficulty here stems from the fact that three levels of ethical regulation inter-relate in complex ways. For example, it may be that there are strong moral reasons against adults creating or using a robot as a sexual partner (third level). But, out of respect for their individual autonomy, they should be legally free to do so (first level). However, there may also be good reasons to cultivate a social morality that generally frowns upon such activities (second level), so that the sale and public display of sex robots is legally constrained in various ways (through zoning laws, taxation, age and advertising restrictions, etc.) akin to the legal restrictions on cigarettes or gambling (first level, again). Given this complexity, there is no a priori assurance of a single best way of integrating the three levels of regulation, although there will nonetheless be an imperative to converge on some universal standards at the first and second levels where the matter being addressed demands a uniform solution across different national jurisdictional boundaries.

The paper is here.

When Do Robots Have Free Will? Exploring the Relationships between (Attributions of) Consciousness and Free Will

Eddy Nahmias, Corey Allen, & Bradley Loveall
Georgia State University

From the Conclusion:

If future research bolsters our initial findings, then it would appear that when people consider whether agents are free and responsible, they are considering whether the agents have capacities to feel emotions more than whether they have conscious sensations or even capacities to deliberate or reason. It’s difficult to know whether people assume that phenomenal consciousness is required for or enhances capacities to deliberate and reason. And of course, we do not deny that cognitive capacities for self-reflection, imagination, and reasoning are crucial for free and responsible agency (see, e.g., Nahmias 2018). For instance, once considering agents that are assumed to have phenomenal consciousness, such as humans, it is likely that people’s attributions of free will and responsibility decrease in response to information that an agent has severely diminished reasoning capacities. But people seem to have intuitions that support the idea that an essential condition for free will is the capacity to experience conscious emotions.  And we find it plausible that these intuitions indicate that people take it to be essential to being a free agent that one can feel the emotions involved in reactive attitudes and in genuinely caring about one’s choices and their outcomes.

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Perhaps, fiction points us towards the truth here. In most fictional portrayals of artificial intelligence and robots (such as Blade Runner, A.I., and Westworld), viewers tend to think of the robots differently when they are portrayed in a way that suggests they express and feel emotions.  No matter how intelligent or complex their behavior, the robots do not come across as free and autonomous until they seem to care about what happens to them (and perhaps others). Often this is portrayed by their showing fear of their own or others’ deaths, or expressing love, anger, or joy. Sometimes it is portrayed by the robots’ expressing reactive attitudes, such as indignation about how humans treat them, or our feeling such attitudes towards them, for instance when they harm humans.

The research paper is here.

Therapist accused of sending client photos of herself in lingerie can’t get her state license back: Pa. court

Matt Miller
www.pennlive.com
Originally posted July 17, 2019

A therapist who was accused of sending a patient photos of herself in lingerie can’t have her state counseling license back, a Commonwealth Court panel ruled Wednesday.

That is so even though Sheri Colston denied sending those photos or having any inappropriate interactions with the male client, the court found in an opinion by Judge Robert Simpson.

The court ruling upholds an indefinite suspension of Colston’s license imposed by the State Board of Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists and Professional Counselors. That board also ordered Colston to pay $7,409 to cover the cost of investigating her case.

The info is here.

The Gordian Knot of Disposition Theory: Character Morality and Liking

Matthew Grizzard, Jialing Huang, Changhyun Ahn, and others
Journal of Media Psychology.
https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-1105/a000257

Abstract

Morally ambiguous characters are often perceived to challenge Zillmann’s affective disposition theory of drama. At the heart of this challenge is the question: “To what extent can liking be independent of character morality?” The current study examines this question with a 2 (Disposition: Positive vs. Negative) × 3 (Character Type: Hero, Antihero, Villain) between-subjects factorial experiment that induces variance in liking and morality. We assess the influence of these orthogonal manipulations on measured liking and morality. Main effects of both manipulations on the measured variables emerged, with a significant correlation between measures. Regression analyses further confirm that liking is associated with perceived morality and vice versa. Because variance in morality was induced by the liking manipulation and variance in liking was induced by the morality manipulation, the assumptions of disposition theory regarding morality and liking seem accurate. Future research directions are provided that may help reconcile and integrate the seeming challenge of morally ambiguous characters with affective disposition theory.

The research is here.

Here is a link to a separate paper on Moral Pornography as it applies to comic book heroes and villains.

Google Contractors Listen to Recordings of People Using Virtual Assistant

Sarah E. Needleman and Parmy Olson
The Wall Street Journal
Originally posted July 11, 2019

Here are two excerpts:

In a blog post Thursday, Google confirmed it employs people world-wide to listen to a small sample of recordings.

The public broadcaster’s report said the recordings potentially expose sensitive information about users such as names and addresses.

It also said Google, in some cases, is recording voices of customers even when they aren’t using Google Assistant [emphasis added].

In its blog post, Google said language experts listen to 0.2% of “audio snippets” taken from the Google Assistant to better understand different languages, accents and dialects.

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It is common practice for makers of virtual assistants to record and listen to some of what their users say so they can improve on the technology, said Bret Kinsella, chief executive of Voicebot.ai, a research firm focused on voice technology and artificial intelligence.

“Anything with speech recognition, you generally have humans at one point listening and annotating to sort out what types of errors are occurring,” he said.

In May, however, a coalition of privacy and child-advocacy groups filed a complaint with federal regulators about Amazon potentially preserving conversations of young users through its Echo Dot Kids devices.

The info is here.

Ethics in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Shohini Kundu
Scientific American
Originally published July 3, 2019

Here is an except:

Unfortunately, in that decision-making process, AI also took away the transparency, explainability, predictability, teachability and auditability of the human move, replacing it with opacity. The logic for the move is not only unknown to the players, but also unknown to the creators of the program. As AI makes decisions for us, transparency and predictability of decision-making may become a thing of the past.

Imagine a situation in which your child comes home to you and asks for an allowance to go see a movie with her friends. You oblige. A week later, your other child comes to you with the same request, but this time, you decline. This will immediately raise the issue of unfairness and favoritism. To avoid any accusation of favoritism, you explain to your child that she must finish her homework before qualifying for any pocket money.

Without any explanation, there is bound to be tension in the family. Now imagine replacing your role with an AI system that has gathered data from thousands of families in similar situations. By studying the consequence of allowance decisions on other families, it comes to the conclusion that one sibling should get the pocket money while the other sibling should not.

But the AI system cannot really explain the reasoning—other than to say that it weighed your child’s hair color, height, weight and all other attributes that it has access to in arriving at a decision that seems to work best for other families. How is that going to work?

The info is here.

US Senators Call for International Guidelines for Germline Editing

Jef Akst
www.the-scientist.com
Originally published July 16, 2019

Here is an excerpt:

“Gene editing is a powerful technology that has the potential to lead to new therapies for devastating and previously untreatable diseases,” Feinstein says in a statement. “However, like any new technology, there is potential for misuse. The international community must establish standards for gene-editing research to develop global ethical principles and prevent unethical researchers from moving to whichever country has the loosest regulations.” (Editing embryos for reproductive purposes is already illegal in the US.)

In addition, the resolution makes clear that the trio of senators “opposes the experiments that resulted in pregnancies using genome-edited human embryos”—referring to the revelation last fall that researcher He Jiankui had CRISPRed the genomes of two babies born in China.

The info is here.