With the powerful performance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) also comes prevalent ethical issues. Though governments and corporations have curated multiple AI ethics guidelines to curb unethical behavior of AI, the effect has been limited, probably due to the vagueness of the guidelines. In this paper, we take a closer look at how AI ethics issues take place in real world, in order to have a more in-depth and nuanced understanding of different ethical issues as well as their social impact. With a content analysis of AI Incident Database, which is an effort to prevent repeated real world AI failures by cataloging incidents, we identified 13 application areas which often see unethical use of AI, with intelligent service robots, language/vision models and autonomous driving taking the lead. Ethical issues appear in 8 different forms, from inappropriate use and racial discrimination, to physical safety and unfair algorithm. With this taxonomy of AI ethics issues, we aim to provide a perspective for guideline makers to formulate more operable guidelines when trying to deploy AI applications ethically.
17 April 2024 in Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are decentralized digital tokens to represent the unique ownership of items. Recently, NFTs have been gaining popularity and at the same time bringing up issues, such as scams, racism, and sexism. Decentralization, a key attribute of NFT, contributes to some of the issues that are easier to regulate under centralized schemes, which are intentionally left out of the NFT marketplace. In this work, we delved into this centralization-decentralization dilemma in the NFT space through mixed quantitative and qualitative methods. Centralization-decentralization dilemma is the dilemma caused by the conflict between the slogan of decentralization and the interests of stakeholders. We first analyzed over 30,000 NFT-related tweets to obtain a high-level understanding of stakeholders' concerns in the NFT space. We then interviewed 15 NFT stakeholders (both creators and collectors) to obtain their in-depth insights into these concerns and potential solutions. Our findings identify concerning issues among users: financial scams, counterfeit NFTs, hacking, and unethical NFTs. We further reflected on the centralization-decentralization dilemma drawing upon the perspectives of the stakeholders in the interviews. Finally, we gave some inferences to solve the centralization-decentralization dilemma in the NFT market and thought about the future of NFT and decentralization.
28 September 2023 in Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
Short-form video sharing platforms (SVSPs) have seen a significant surge in older adult content creators in recent years. This emerging trend adds evidence to challenge the conventional perception of older adults as later technology adopters and passive online recipients. To investigate the reason behind the trend, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 13 older adult content creators on two of the most popular SVSPs in China, DouYin and KuaiShou. We found that our participants were initially attracted to SVSPs because of perceived ease of participation and the enjoyment they found. However, what kept them engaged was the attention and support they received there. SVSPs offered a low-barrier and equitable platform through their near-automatic use and relatively equal opportunities for recommendations, allowing everyone to reach audiences. Motivated by their passion for performance and the viewers' support, our participants actively acquired new skills for better performance and became more deeply involved on the platforms. Based on the findings, we reflect on how SVSPs' technical affordances support older adults in the transition from lurkers to contributors. We advocate for participation equity and supportive environments to promote more inclusive social media platforms.
With the powerful performance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) also comes prevalent ethical issues. Though governments and corporations have curated multiple AI ethics guidelines to curb unethical behavior of AI, the effect has been limited, probably due to the vagueness of the guidelines. In this paper, we take a closer look at how AI ethics issues take place in real world, in order to have a more in-depth and nuanced understanding of different ethical issues as well as their social impact. With a content analysis of AI Incident Database, which is an effort to prevent repeated real world AI failures by cataloging incidents, we identified 13 application areas which often see unethical use of AI, with intelligent service robots, language/vision models and autonomous driving taking the lead. Ethical issues appear in 8 different forms, from inappropriate use and racial discrimination, to physical safety and unfair algorithm. With this taxonomy of AI ethics issues, we aim to provide AI practitioners with a practical guideline when trying to deploy AI applications ethically.