Technological Delegation: Responsibility for the Unintended

Waelbers, Katinka

doi:10.1007/s11948-008-9098-x

Cited by 26 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 16 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In such cases, society must address what Matthias calls a "responsibility gap". Gotterbarn (2001) and Waelbers (2009) add two pervasive misconceptions about technology and responsibility that complicate the attribution of responsibility in such cases: the alleged ethical neutrality of technological artifacts; and the predominant reductionist understanding of responsibility, which only considers its retrospective conception.…”

Section: The Nature Of Social Chatbotsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tay is you. The attribution of responsibility in the algorithmic culture.

Suárez-Gonzalo

Manchón

Guerrero-Solé

2019

(OBS*)

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Social media have changed the communication practices by creating an acute need for continuous interaction. The use of social chatbots is growing as an effective way to communicate with publics. Bots have become social actors and then, someone must account for their actions. Since responsibility is bounded to agency and rationality, it cannot be directly attributed to bots. Who should be held responsible for non-human beings' actions, particularly when the consequences of these actions are negative? We address this controversy from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. Firstly, we discuss the adequacy of the notions of moral responsibility and accountability regarding non-human artificial agents, as they are ruled by complex, intentionally opaque and unpredictable interactions and processes. We do it from the two approaches currently predominant: context-dependent and structuralist. Secondly, we draw on the assumption that the failure of a computer system is an opportunity to gain knowledge about the interested powers behind its design and functioning. Then, taking the concept of media frame as an implicit way of spotting the agent of the story, we perform an exploratory analysis on how responsibility was attributed by the media in the paradigmatic case of the transformation of Tay, a chatbot launched by Microsoft in 2016, turned into a racist, Nazi and homophobic hate speaker. Our results illustrate the difficulties media experienced in consistently attributing the responsibility for the chatbots' malfunction. Results show the discourse is, in general, simplistic, non-critical and misleading, and tends to depict a reality that favors business's interests. We conclude that, while all the actors interacting with the chatbot share the responsibility of its actions, it is only Microsoft who must account for these actions, both retrospectively and prospectively.

show abstract

Section: The Nature Of Social Chatbotsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tay is you. The attribution of responsibility in the algorithmic culture.

Suárez-Gonzalo

Manchón

Guerrero-Solé

2019

(OBS*)

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In this sense technologies become black boxes (Callon, 1986). Similarly Waelbers (2009) notes that socio-technical systems are so complex that it is rather difficult for individuals to take responsibility for their actions.…”

Section: Domestic Routines and Technologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Technology and Pro-Environmental Behavior in Urban Households: How Technologies Mediate Domestic Routines

Chernovich

2013

SSRN Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper investigates environmental behavior in Russian households by the analysis of 24 indepth interviews conducted in typical households of the city of Moscow. Using the STS tools such as 'script' and 'moral agency' it discovers how technologies shape domestic routines and pro-environmental behavior of their users and how the users shape the resource consumption of technological artifacts. Depending on their environmental values and believes three types of residents are identified: committed environmentalists, occasional environmentalists and nonenvironmentalists. Each of the group of people appeared to have different agencies in relation to their domestic technologies. Technologies also seem to play different role in shaping moral actions of the three categories of residents.

show abstract

“…Any such responsibility must be balanced against the degree of intentionality, which is complicated not only by the duality of praxis (i.e. the recreation of technical structure being an unintended consequence of technical activity) but also by the complexity of technical systems, which introduces some dissociation between agents, actions and consequences (see Waelbers 2009). …”

Section: Critical Realism and Reconciliationmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Next after Determinism in the Ontology of Technology? Distributing Responsibility in the Biofuel Debate

Boucher

2010

Sci Eng Ethics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article builds upon previous discussion of social and technical determinisms as implicit positions in the biofuel debate. To ensure these debates are balanced, it has been suggested that they should be designed to contain a variety of deterministic positions. Whilst it is agreed that determinism does not feature strongly in contemporary academic literatures, it is found that they have generally been superseded by an absence of any substantive conceptualisation of how the social shaping of technology may be related to, or occur alongside, an objective or autonomous reality. The problem of determinism emerges at an ontological level and must be resolved in situ. A critical realist approach to technology is presented which may provide a more appropriate framework for debate. In dialogue with previous discussion, the distribution of responsibility is revisited with reference to the role of scientists and engineers.

show abstract

Technological Delegation: Responsibility for the Unintended

Cited by 26 publications

References 16 publications

Tay is you. The attribution of responsibility in the algorithmic culture.

Tay is you. The attribution of responsibility in the algorithmic culture.

Technology and Pro-Environmental Behavior in Urban Households: How Technologies Mediate Domestic Routines

What Next after Determinism in the Ontology of Technology? Distributing Responsibility in the Biofuel Debate

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About