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200Does Predictive Sentencing Make Sense?Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.This paper examines the practice of using predictive systems to lengthen the prison sentences of convicted persons when the systems forecast a higher likelihood of re-offense or re-arrest. There has been much critical discussion of technologies used for sentencing, including questions of bias and opacity. However, there hasn’t been a discussion of whether this use of predictive systems makes sense in the first place. We argue that it does not by showing that there is no plausible theory of punis…Read more
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2313Social Media, Emergent Manipulation, and Political LegitimacyIn Michael Klenk & Fleur Jongepier (eds.), The Philosophy of Online Manipulation, Routledge. pp. 353-369. 2022.Psychometrics firms such as Cambridge Analytica (CA) and troll factories such as the Internet Research Agency (IRA) have had a significant effect on democratic politics, through narrow targeting of political advertising (CA) and concerted disinformation campaigns on social media (IRA) (U.S. Department of Justice 2019; Select Committee on Intelligence, United States Senate 2019; DiResta et al. 2019). It is natural to think that such activities manipulate individuals and, hence, are wrong. Yet, as…Read more
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63Recommendations for Responsible Development and Application of NeurotechnologiesNeuroethics 14 (3): 365-386. 2021.Advancements in novel neurotechnologies, such as brain computer interfaces and neuromodulatory devices such as deep brain stimulators, will have profound implications for society and human rights. While these technologies are improving the diagnosis and treatment of mental and neurological diseases, they can also alter individual agency and estrange those using neurotechnologies from their sense of self, challenging basic notions of what it means to be human. As an international coalition of int…Read more
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134Algorithms and Autonomy: The Ethics of Automated Decision SystemsCambridge University Press. 2021.Algorithms influence every facet of modern life: criminal justice, education, housing, entertainment, elections, social media, news feeds, work… the list goes on. Delegating important decisions to machines, however, gives rise to deep moral concerns about responsibility, transparency, freedom, fairness, and democracy. Algorithms and Autonomy connects these concerns to the core human value of autonomy in the contexts of algorithmic teacher evaluation, risk assessment in criminal sentencing, predi…Read more
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792Democratic Obligations and Technological Threats to Legitimacy: PredPol, Cambridge Analytica, and Internet Research AgencyIn Alan Rubel, Clinton Castro & Adam Pham (eds.), Algorithms and Autonomy: The Ethics of Automated Decision Systems, Cambridge University Press. pp. 163-183. 2021.ABSTRACT: So far in this book, we have examined algorithmic decision systems from three autonomy-based perspectives: in terms of what we owe autonomous agents (chapters 3 and 4), in terms of the conditions required for people to act autonomously (chapters 5 and 6), and in terms of the responsibilities of agents (chapter 7). In this chapter we turn to the ways in which autonomy underwrites democratic governance. Political authority, which is to say the ability of a government to exercise …Read more
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442What We Informationally Owe Each OtherIn Alan Rubel, Clinton Castro & Adam Pham (eds.), Algorithms and Autonomy: The Ethics of Automated Decision Systems, Cambridge University Press. pp. 21-42. 2021.ABSTRACT: One important criticism of algorithmic systems is that they lack transparency. Such systems can be opaque because they are complex, protected by patent or trade secret, or deliberately obscure. In the EU, there is a debate about whether the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) contains a “right to explanation,” and if so what such a right entails. Our task in this chapter is to address this informational component of algorithmic systems. We argue that information access is integra…Read more
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590A matter of trust: : Higher education institutions as information fiduciaries in an age of educational data mining and learning analyticsJASIST: Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology. forthcoming.Higher education institutions are mining and analyzing student data to effect educational, political, and managerial outcomes. Done under the banner of “learning analytics,” this work can—and often does—surface sensitive data and information about, inter alia, a student’s demographics, academic performance, offline and online movements, physical fitness, mental wellbeing, and social network. With these data, institutions and third parties are able to describe student life, predict future behavio…Read more
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407Privacy, Ethics, and Institutional ResearchNew Directions in Institutional Research 2019 (183): 5-16. 2019.Despite widespread agreement that privacy in the context of education is important, it can be difficult to pin down precisely why and to what extent it is important, and it is challenging to determine how privacy is related to other important values. But that task is crucial. Absent a clear sense of what privacy is, it will be difficult to understand the scope of privacy protections in codes of ethics. Moreover, privacy will inevitably conflict with other values, and understanding the values tha…Read more
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546The Temptation of Data-enabled Surveillance: Are Universities the Next Cautionary Tale?Communications of the Acm 4 (63): 22-24. 2020.There is increasing concern about “surveillance capitalism,” whereby for-profit companies generate value from data, while individuals are unable to resist (Zuboff 2019). Non-profits using data-enabled surveillance receive less attention. Higher education institutions (HEIs) have embraced data analytics, but the wide latitude that private, profit-oriented enterprises have to collect data is inappropriate. HEIs have a fiduciary relationship to students, not a narrowly transactional one (see Jones …Read more
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906Algorithms, Agency, and Respect for PersonsSocial Theory and Practice 46 (3): 547-572. 2020.Algorithmic systems and predictive analytics play an increasingly important role in various aspects of modern life. Scholarship on the moral ramifications of such systems is in its early stages, and much of it focuses on bias and harm. This paper argues that in understanding the moral salience of algorithmic systems it is essential to understand the relation between algorithms, autonomy, and agency. We draw on several recent cases in criminal sentencing and K–12 teacher evaluation to outline fou…Read more
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630Epistemic Paternalism OnlineIn Guy Axtell & Amiel Bernal (eds.), Epistemic Paternalism: Conceptions, Justifications and Implications, Rowman & Littlefield International. pp. 29-44. 2020.New media (highly interactive digital technology for creating, sharing, and consuming information) affords users a great deal of control over their informational diets. As a result, many users of new media unwittingly encapsulate themselves in epistemic bubbles (epistemic structures, such as highly personalized news feeds, that leave relevant sources of information out (Nguyen forthcoming)). Epistemically paternalistic alterations to new media technologies could be made to pop at least some epis…Read more
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934Agency Laundering and Information TechnologiesEthical Theory and Moral Practice 22 (4): 1017-1041. 2019.When agents insert technological systems into their decision-making processes, they can obscure moral responsibility for the results. This can give rise to a distinct moral wrong, which we call “agency laundering.” At root, agency laundering involves obfuscating one’s moral responsibility by enlisting a technology or process to take some action and letting it forestall others from demanding an account for bad outcomes that result. We argue that the concept of agency laundering helps in understan…Read more
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166Bias in Information, Algorithms, and SystemsIn Jo Bates, Paul D. Clough, Robert Jäschke & Jahna Otterbacher (eds.), Proceedings of the International Workshop on Bias in Information, Algorithms, and Systems (BIAS), . pp. 9-13. 2018.We argue that an essential element of understanding the moral salience of algorithmic systems requires an analysis of the relation between algorithms and agency. We outline six key ways in which issues of agency, autonomy, and respect for persons can conflict with algorithmic decision-making.
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147Agency Laundering and Algorithmic Decision SystemsIn N. Taylor, C. Christian-Lamb, M. Martin & B. Nardi (eds.), Information in Contemporary Society (Lecture Notes in Computer Science), Springer Nature. pp. 590-598. 2019.This paper has two aims. The first is to explain a type of wrong that arises when agents obscure responsibility for their actions. Call it “agency laundering.” The second is to use the concept of agency laundering to understand the underlying moral issues in a number of recent cases involving algorithmic decision systems. From the Proceedings of the 14th International Conference, iConference 2019, Washington D.C., March 31-April 3, 2019.
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383Searching Eyes: Privacy, the State, and Disease Surveillance in America – By Amy L. Fairchild, Ronald Bayer, and James Colgrove (review)Review of Policy Research 26 633-634. 2009.Review of Searching Eyes: Privacy, the State, and Disease Surveillance in America – By Amy L. Fairchild, Ronald Bayer, and James Colgrove
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473A Framework for Analyzing and Comparing Privacy StatesJASIST: The Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 65 (12): 2422-2431. 2014.This article develops a framework for analyzing and comparing privacy and privacy protections across (inter alia) time, place, and polity and for examining factors that affect privacy and privacy protection. This framework provides a method to describe precisely aspects of privacy and context and a flexible vocabulary and notation for such descriptions and comparisons. Moreover, it links philosophical and conceptual work on privacy to social science and policy work and accommodates different con…Read more
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643Libraries, Electronic Resources, and Privacy: The Case for Positive Intellectual FreedomLibrary Quarterly 84 (2): 183-208. 2014.Public and research libraries have long provided resources in electronic formats, and the tension between providing electronic resources and patron privacy is widely recognized. But assessing trade-offs between privacy and access to electronic resources remains difficult. One reason is a conceptual problem regarding intellectual freedom. Traditionally, the LIS literature has plausibly understood privacy as a facet of intellectual freedom. However, while certain types of electronic resource use m…Read more
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395Four Facets of Privacy and Intellectual Freedom in Licensing Contracts for Electronic JournalsCollege and Research Libraries 4 (76): 427-449. 2015.This is a study of the treatment of library patron privacy in licenses for electronic journals in academic libraries. We begin by distinguishing four facets of privacy and intellectual freedom based on the LIS and philosophical literature. Next, we perform a content analysis of 42 license agreements for electronic journals, focusing on terms for enforcing authorized use and collection and sharing of user data. We compare our findings to model licenses, to recommendations proposed in a recent tre…Read more
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628Privacy, Transparency, and Accountability in the NSA’s Bulk Metadata ProgramIn Adam D. Moore (ed.), Privacy, Security and Accountability: Ethics, Law and Policy, Rowman & Littlefield International. pp. 183-202. 2015.Disputes at the intersection of national security, surveillance, civil liberties, and transparency are nothing new, but they have become a particularly prominent part of public discourse in the years since the attacks on the World Trade Center in September 2001. This is in part due to the dramatic nature of those attacks, in part based on significant legal developments after the attacks (classifying persons as “enemy combatants” outside the scope of traditional Geneva protections, legal memos by…Read more
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458Data Analytics in Higher Education: Key Concerns and Open QuestionsUniversity of St. Thomas Journal of Law and Public Policy 1 (11): 25-44. 2017.“Big Data” and data analytics affect all of us. Data collection, analysis, and use on a large scale is an important and growing part of commerce, governance, communication, law enforcement, security, finance, medicine, and research. And the theme of this symposium, “Individual and Informational Privacy in the Age of Big Data,” is expansive; we could have long and fruitful discussions about practices, laws, and concerns in any of these domains. But a big part of the audience for this symposium is…Read more
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282Legal Archetypes and Metadata CollectionWisconsin International Law Review 34 (4): 823-853. 2017.In discussions of state surveillance, the values of privacy and security are often set against one another, and people often ask whether privacy is more important than national security.2 I will argue that in one sense privacy is more important than national security. Just what more important means is its own question, though, so I will be more precise. I will argue that national security rationales cannot by themselves justify some kinds of encroachments on individual privacy (including some ki…Read more
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90Privacy and ethics in brain-computer interface researchIn Eran Klein & Alan Rubel (eds.), Brain–Computer Interfaces Handbook: Technological and Theoretical Advances. pp. 653-655. 2018.Neural engineers and clinicians are starting to translate advances in electrodes, neural computation, and signal processing into clinically useful devices to allow control of wheelchairs, spellers, prostheses, and other devices. In the process, large amounts of brain data are being generated from participants, including intracortical, subdural and extracranial sources. Brain data is a vital resource for BCI research but there are concerns about whether the collection and use of this data generat…Read more
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2284Student Privacy in Learning Analytics: An Information Ethics PerspectiveThe Information Society 32 (2): 143-159. 2016.In recent years, educational institutions have started using the tools of commercial data analytics in higher education. By gathering information about students as they navigate campus information systems, learning analytics “uses analytic techniques to help target instructional, curricular, and support resources” to examine student learning behaviors and change students’ learning environments. As a result, the information educators and educational institutions have at their disposal is no longe…Read more
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462The Particularized Judgment Account of PrivacyRes Publica 17 (3): 275-290. 2011.Questions of privacy have become particularly salient in recent years due, in part, to information-gathering initiatives precipitated by the 2001 World Trade Center attacks, increasing power of surveillance and computing technologies, and massive data collection about individuals for commercial purposes. While privacy is not new to the philosophical and legal literature, there is much to say about the nature and value of privacy. My focus here is on the nature of informational privacy. I argue t…Read more
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47Profiling, Information Collection and the Value of Rights ArgumentCriminal Justice Ethics 32 (3): 1-21. 2013.In the United States and elsewhere, there is substantial controversy regarding the use of race and ethnicity by police in determining whom to stop, question, and investigate in relation to crime and security issues. In the ethics literature, the debate about profiling largely focuses on the nature of profiling and when (if ever) profiling is morally justifiable. This essay addresses the related, but distinct, issue of whether states have a duty to collect information about the race and ethnicity…Read more
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39Democratic principles and mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foodPublic Affairs Quarterly 18 (3): 223-248. 2004.
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34Nanotechnology, Sensors, and Rights to PrivacyPublic Affairs Quarterly 24 (2): 131-153. 2010.A suite of technological advances based on nanotechnology has received substantial attention for its potential to affect privacy. Reports of the National Nanotechnology Initiative have recognized that the societal implications of nanotechnology will include better surveillance and information-gathering technologies. A variety of academic and popular publications have explained the potential effects of nanotechnology on privacy.The ways in which nanotechnology might affect privacy are varied. It …Read more
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105Respecting the autonomy of european and american consumers: Defending positive labels on gm foodsJournal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 18 (1): 75-84. 2004.In her recent article, Does autonomy count in favor of labeling genetically modified food?, Kirsten Hansen argues that in Europe, voluntary negative labeling of non-GM foods respects consumer autonomy just as well as mandatory positive labeling of foods with GM content. She also argues that because negative labeling places labeling costs upon those consumers that want to know whether food is GM, negative labeling is better policy than positive labeling. In this paper, we argue that Hansens argum…Read more
Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America
Areas of Interest
Applied Ethics |
Philosophy of Law |
Technology Ethics |