CITP Seminar – Agile Ethics: Preliminary Evidence of Improvements in Ethical Decision-making Through Simulations

Responsible tech development frameworks often urge technologists to anticipate potential harms of their product, include the voices of affected stakeholders, reflect on the values inherent in their work, and be responsive to the concerns of others.  But how do we teach the value of these things?  It’s one thing to build anticipation, inclusion, reflection and responsiveness into a workflow.  It’s another to get the developers to care.  In this talk, we’ll define four elements as cognitive components of an ethical decision-making process, explain a unique pedagogical intervention designed to target those components, and present evidence from a very preliminary study done with a unique instrument custom-built to measure these cognitive changes.

Bio: Steven Kelts is a Lecturer in the School of Public and International Affairs and a Professional Specialist for Responsible Computing Curricula in CITP.  He is an ethicist with two decades experience in the classroom and in tech non-profits. He leads the Agile Ethics program, which challenges students to consider difficult ethical issues in a simulated workflow. Agile Ethics is supported by a grant from Princeton’s Council on Science and Technology and a grant from Google to study the results of his roleplay method. With CITP, he works alongside computer science faculty to integrate responsible computing instruction into their lectures, technical assignments, and experiential learning opportunities.

Kelts is also a non-profit leader. He is an ethics advisor to the Responsible A.I. Institute, and the Director of the Responsible Tech University Network for All Tech Is Human. His recent research focuses on the special nature of today’s tech firms and their potential for ethical action, including an article in a special issue of IEEE’s Technology and Society Magazine. Kelts also has led the GradFutures initiative on Ethics of AI for the Princeton Graduate School, with the objective of encouraging Ph.D. candidates in all disciplines to apply their expertise in the field of tech ethics, at universities or in corporations

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In-person attendance is open to Princeton University faculty, staff and students. This seminar is open to the general public, at this link, via Zoom. It will be recorded and posted to the CITP website, the CITP YouTube channel and the Princeton University Media Central channel.

If you need an accommodation for a disability please contact Jean Butcher at butcher@princeton.edu at least one week before the event.

Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any event does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented.