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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tIt\u2019s fair to say that university research ethics isn\u2019t a topic that ranks very high in the public consciousness. But in the past few weeks, we\u2019ve seen quite a few stories that address \u2013 albeit in very different ways \u2013 a subject that\u2019s normally restricted to discussions between academics and university administrators.
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLet\u2019s face it if you want a story to capture the imagination, having killer robots in it never hurts. And while they may sound like science fiction, killer robots made global news at the start of April. These stories \u2013 some of them illustrated with stills from the Terminator movies \u2013 reported that more than fifty leading academics in the field of Artificial Intelligence research had called for a boycott of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST).
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe proposed boycott centred around fears that the Institute and its partner, the defence manufacturer Hanwha Systems, were conducting research that could eventually lead to the manufacture and sale of autonomous weapons. Advances in robotics technology over the past few years have raised concerns that futuristic-sounding autonomous weapons \u2013 or \u201ckiller robots\u201d \u2013 may now be within reach. A UN meeting on autonomous weapons is scheduled for this month, with over twenty countries having already called for an absolute ban.
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWhy were the researchers calling for a boycott?\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlthough the boycott was eventually called off after KAIST offered assurances about its intentions, the debate touched on important questions about research ethics. Research for its own stake is the lifeblood of academia and universities, but most scholars would like to believe that their activities are to the collective benefit of humanity. But even the greatest discoveries can also lead indirectly to harm and loss of life.
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlbert Einstein is widely regarded as the greatest physicist of the twentieth century. But after witnessing the destruction of the Hiroshima bomb, which was made possible in part by his discoveries in nuclear physics, Einstein famously remarked: \u201cIf only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.\u201d
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u201cPure\u201d research and impact\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBut while there has always been a tension between \u201cpure\u201d research and the ends to which insights are eventually put, these tensions have been magnified in recent years by the \u201cimpact\u201d culture around research. These days, exercises such as the UK\u2019s Research Excellence Framework (REF) explicitly require researchers to prove that their research has \u201creal-world\u201d applications and to work with governmental or commercial partners to put their research to work. Researchers are actively encouraged to develop commercial spin-out ventures to maximise the profit value of their research.
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNone of this is especially evident in research ethics policies, though. Read through any university\u2019s processes for obtaining ethics clearance and you\u2019ll notice a couple of things. Firstly, they tend to assume that the research is being conducted for its own sake. And secondly, they focus overwhelmingly on the treatment of human subjects and ensuring anonymity and protections for participants in a social study or clinical trial. These two factors mean they generally have very little to say about where research data ends up or the ethical implications of its eventual use.
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTime for a public conversation\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tKiller robots may be the most eye-catching recent story about research ethics, but it\u2019s certainly not the only one \u2013 nor, arguably, the most important. The recent scandal involving Cambridge Analytica and Facebook might well be a watershed moment for thinking about the relationships between academic research and commercial enterprise, and the ethical implications of that.
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAleksandr Kogan, the academic who developed the software used to mine the data of millions of Facebook users, has claimed that he acted appropriately and in accordance with Cambridge University\u2019s ethics policies at all times. His interest in the data mining, he argues, was purely academic and for the purposes of legitimate social science research. He now claims he\u2019s being made a \u201cscapegoat\u201d by Facebook and Cambridge Analytica.
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tKogan\u2019s defence goes to the heart of the sometimes murky relationships between academic research and the stakeholders that part-fund and benefit from this research. The changing \u2013 and increasingly commercialised \u2013 nature of academic research arguably means that there\u2019s no such thing as \u201cpure\u201d scholarly research anymore and that ethics policies need to be updated and expanded as a result.
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA public conversation on the nature and ethics of contemporary scholarly research is overdue. And if data mining is a bit too abstract to prompt that conversation, we\u2019ve always got killer robots.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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