Ethical considerations in early AI design processes

Sammanfattning

Introduction: The discussion of ethics in Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasing and gaining greater importance, however the integration of ethics in AI development remains limited, even though ethics is important for a more equal and aware society. This study compares the design process with and without the use of an ethical expansion to the AI Brainstorming kit (Yildirim et al., 2023) with the goal of identifying what ethical themes occur. Research Question: The research question that this study addresses is as follows: What ethical themes emerge from workshops on the AI Brainstorming kit with and without an ethical expansion? Method: This study's research strategy is a quasi-experiment in which two workshops were completed, the control group was workshop A, only using the AI Brainstorming kit, and workshop B was the experimental group using the AI Brainstorming kit including the ethical expansion. The data collection was completed through mixed methods where qualitative data was collected in the form of oral-verbal recordings, which were later transcribed and analysed through Affinity diagrams. Quantitative data were collected through both pre- and post-tests, enabling clear comparison of the participants' answers. Results: The analysis showed a significant difference in the amount of ethical content from the participants, and that workshop B with the ethical expansion was most effective at promoting ethical thinking and discussion. For the pre- and post-test, workshop A developed more on AI capabilities, whereas workshop B improved more than workshop A regarding ethical considerations. Particularly clear was the improvement regarding the understanding of how design choices affect ethics and how to act ethically in early design processes. Discussion: The findings suggest that ethical methods are necessary to consciously add and highlight the need for them to be discussed and included in the early stages of design processes. Designers might consider including more ethically focused methods into their ideation phases. Future research could further develop the ethical expansion from this study as well as developing more ways for designers to work with ethics in early design phases.