UNESCO Holds Workshop on AI Ethics in Cuba; UNESCO, February 7, 2025

UNESCO; UNESCO Holds Workshop on AI Ethics in Cuba

"During the joint UNESCO-MINCOM National Workshop "Ethics of Artificial Intelligence: Equity, Rights, Inclusion" in Havana, the results of the application of the Readiness Assessment Methodology (RAM) for the ethical development of AI in Cuba were presented.

Similarly, there was a discussion on the Ethical Impact Assessment (EIA), a tool aimed at ensuring that AI systems follow ethical rules and are transparent...

The meeting began with a video message from the Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences, Gabriela Ramos, who emphasized that artificial intelligence already has a significant impact on many aspects of our lives, reshaping the way we work, learn, and organize society.

Technologies can bring us greater productivity, help deliver public services more efficiently, empower society, and drive economic growth, but they also risk perpetuating global inequalities, destabilizing societies, and endangering human rights if they are not safe, representative, and fair, and above all, if they are not accessible to everyone.

Gabriela RamosAssistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences"

A Judge Tried to Get Out of Jury Duty. What He Said Cost Him His Job.; The New York Times, February 6, 2025

Ed Shanahan, The New York Times ; A Judge Tried to Get Out of Jury Duty. What He Said Cost Him His Job.

[Kip Currier: A bedrock principle of the American judicial system is a commitment to equity and fairness by those who are entrusted to be impartial adjudicators. This story reveals an individual who makes a mockery of that ethical imperative.]

[Excerpt]

"When Richard Snyder was running to be a town justice in tiny Petersburgh, N.Y., in 2013, he told a local news site that he would be fair and honest on the bench. Because he was not a lawyer, he also said he was “looking forward to learning about the law.”

He just learned something about it the hard way.

Mr. Snyder, a Republican, was unopposed in that 2013 race and won it with 329 votes. But in December he resigned after a disciplinary panel found that he had tried to get out of grand jury duty by introducing himself as a town justice and saying he could not be impartial based on his opinion of those who appeared in his court.

“I know they are guilty,” Mr. Snyder said in arguing to be excused, according to a court transcript. Otherwise, he explained, “they would not be in front of me.” (The judge dismissed him and notified the disciplinary panel.)"

BREAKING THE GLASS; Science, December 5, 2024

 SOFIA MOUTINHO , Science; BREAKING THE GLASS

In the end he got the waiver, but the experience turned him away from commercial journals published in the Global North and toward a model that has flourished in Latin America: nonprofit open-access journals. These publications, usually run by academic institutions or scientific societies, charge relatively low APCs, in what’s known as the gold model, or nothing at all, known as the diamond model. Science analyzed nearly 20,000 journals listed in a repository of open-access journals between 2019 and 2023, and found that one in four diamond model journals is published in Latin America. Most—83%—are noncommercial, based at universities.

Latin America is also a global pioneer in trying to overcome a long-standing challenge for noncommercial journals in the Global South: invisibility. Most are published in languages other than English, the lingua franca of science, and only a small fraction of them are indexed in international citation and index systems. “I know that my papers will probably not be read on the same scale as if I published in a high-impact journal,” says Oliveira, whose first published paper appeared in Nature. That lack of visibility adds to the inequities facing scientists in the Global South who seek alternatives to commercial publishers, with their high fees or subscription paywalls.

So Latin American academics have developed platforms that gather in one place papers that would otherwise be scattered across individual journal websites and university libraries, boosting their visibility. The upstart platforms are a model for the rest of the world, says Johan Rooryck, executive director of Coalition S. The United Nations, for instance, highlighted the Latin American model during a summit last year aimed at expanding the diamond model of publishing. By continually promoting affordable open access, Latin American platforms “show us the way on how to achieve an equitable publishing model at a larger scale than just a local scale,” Rooryck says."

UW System's copyright policy: What it means for professors; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, December 2, 2024

 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; UW System's copyright policy: What it means for professors

"The University of Wisconsin System's proposed copyright policy aims to transfer ownership of faculty teaching materials to the university."

Gilead Agrees to Allow Generic Version of Groundbreaking H.I.V. Shot in Poor Countries; The New York Times, October 2, 2024

 Stephanie Nolen , The New York Times; Gilead Agrees to Allow Generic Version of Groundbreaking H.I.V. Shot in Poor Countries

"The drugmaker Gilead Sciences on Wednesday announced a plan to allow six generic pharmaceutical companies in Asia and North Africa to make and sell at a lower price its groundbreaking drug lenacapavir, a twice-yearly injection that provides near-total protection from infection with H.I.V.

Those companies will be permitted to sell the drug in 120 countries, including all the countries with the highest rates of H.I.V., which are in sub-Saharan Africa. Gilead will not charge the generic drugmakers for the licenses.

Gilead says the deal, made just weeks after clinical trial results showed how well the drug works, will provide rapid and broad access to a medication that has the potential to end the decades-long H.I.V. pandemic.

But the deal leaves out most middle- and high-income countries — including Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, China and Russia — that together account for about 20 percent of new H.I.V. infections. Gilead will sell its version of the drug in those countries at higher prices. The omission reflects a widening gulf in health care access that is increasingly isolating the people in the middle."

NEH Awards $2.72 Million to Create Research Centers Examining the Cultural Implications of Artificial Intelligence; National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), August 27, 2024

Press Release, National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH); NEH Awards $2.72 Million to Create Research Centers Examining the Cultural Implications of Artificial Intelligence

"The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) today announced grant awards totaling $2.72 million for five colleges and universities to create new humanities-led research centers that will serve as hubs for interdisciplinary collaborative research on the human and social impact of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.

As part of NEH’s third and final round of grant awards for FY2024, the Endowment made its inaugural awards under the new Humanities Research Centers on Artificial Intelligence program, which aims to foster a more holistic understanding of AI in the modern world by creating scholarship and learning centers across the country that spearhead research exploring the societal, ethical, and legal implications of AI. 

Institutions in California, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Virginia were awarded NEH grants to establish the first AI research centers and pilot two or more collaborative research projects that examine AI through a multidisciplinary humanities lens. 

The new Humanities Research Centers on Artificial Intelligence grant program is part of NEH’s agencywide Humanities Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence initiative, which supports humanities projects that explore the impacts of AI-related technologies on truth, trust, and democracy; safety and security; and privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties. The initiative responds to President Biden’s Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence, which establishes new standards for AI safety and security, protects Americans’ privacy, and advances equity and civil rights."

Chicago Public Library Debuts Initiative Offering Ebooks to the City’s Visitors During Special Events; Library Journal, August 23, 2024

Matt Enis, Library Journal; Chicago Public Library Debuts Initiative Offering Ebooks to the City’s Visitors During Special Events

"“Access to knowledge and information is the foundation of a thriving, equitable, and democratic city,” Mayor Johnson said in an announcement. “Thanks to Chicago Public Library and our dedicated librarians, we’re making this powerful initiative possible, ensuring that everyone in Chicago has the opportunity to learn, grow, and connect through universal access to literature.”"

Ethics and equity in the age of AI; Vanderbilt University Research News, May 7, 2024

Jenna Somers, Vanderbilt University Research News ; Ethics and equity in the age of AI

"Throughout the conversation, the role of human intellect in responsible AI use emerged as an essential theme. Because generative AI is trained on a huge body of text on the internet and designed to detect and repeat patterns of language use, it runs the risk of perpetuating societal biases and stereotypes. To mitigate these effects, the panelists emphasized the need to be intentional, critical, and evaluative when using AI, whether users are experts designing and training models at top-tier companies or college students completing an AI-based class assignment.

“There is a lot of work to do around AI literacy, and we can think about this in two parts,” Wise said."

Addressing equity and ethics in artificial intelligence; American Psychological Association, January 8, 2024

 Zara Abrams, American Psychological Association; Addressing equity and ethics in artificial intelligence

"As artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly permeates our world, researchers and policymakers are scrambling to stay one step ahead. What are the potential harms of these new tools—and how can they be avoided?

“With any new technology, we always need to be thinking about what’s coming next. But AI is moving so fast that it’s difficult to grasp how significantly it’s going to change things,” said David Luxton, PhD, a clinical psychologist and an affiliate professor at the University of Washington’s School of Medicine who is part of a session at the upcoming 2024 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) on Harnessing the Power of AI Ethically.

Luxton and his colleagues dubbed recent AI advances “super-disruptive technology” because of their potential to profoundly alter society in unexpected ways. In addition to concerns about job displacement and manipulation, AI tools can cause unintended harm to individuals, relationships, and groups. Biased algorithms can promote discrimination or other forms of inaccurate decision-making that can cause systematic and potentially harmful errors; unequal access to AI can exacerbate inequality (Proceedings of the Stanford Existential Risk Conference 2023, 60–74). On the flip side, AI may also hold the potential to reduce unfairness in today’s world—if people can agree on what “fairness” means.

“There’s a lot of pushback against AI because it can promote bias, but humans have been promoting biases for a really long time,” said psychologist Rhoda Au, PhD, a professor of anatomy and neurobiology at the Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine who is also speaking at CES on harnessing AI ethically. “We can’t just be dismissive and say: ‘AI is good’ or ‘AI is bad.’ We need to embrace its complexity and understand that it’s going to be both.”"

Who owns your cells? Legacy of Henrietta Lacks raises ethical questions about profits from medical research; Cleveland.com, August 18, 2023

Gretchen Cuda Kroen, cleveland.com; Who owns your cells? Legacy of Henrietta Lacks raises ethical questions about profits from medical research

"While the legal victory may have given the family some closure, it has raised concerns for bioethicists in Cleveland and elsewhere.

The case raises important questions about owning one’s own body; whether individuals are entitled to a share of the profits from medical discoveries derived from research on their own cells, organs and genetic material.

But it also offers a tremendous opportunity to not only acknowledge the ethical failures of the past and the seeds of mistrust they have sown, but to guide society toward building better, more trustworthy medical institutions, said Aaron Goldenberg, who directs the Bioethics Center for Community Health and Genomic Equity (CHANGE) at Case Western Reserve University."

A More Ethical Approach to Employing Contractors; Harvard Business Review, August 2, 2023

 Catherine Bracy, Harvard Business Review; A More Ethical Approach to Employing Contractors

"Companies that do not adopt high-road contracting practices create a race to the bottom, degrading job quality and career mobility. Enacting high-road practices, and requiring them of any vendor your company works with, helps mitigate the potential for worker harm in the first place which helps reduce future liability and risk."

If artificial intelligence uses your work, it should pay you; The Washington Post, July 26, 2023

 Joseph Gordon-Levitt, The Washington Post; If artificial intelligence uses your work, it should pay you

"Renowned technologists and economists, including Jaron Lanier and E. Glen Weyl, have long argued that Big Tech should not be allowed to monetize people’s data without compensating them. This concept of “data dignity” was largely responding to the surveillance advertising business models of companies such as Google and Facebook, but Lanier and Weyl also pointed out, quite presciently, that the principle would only grow more vital as AI rose to prominence...

When I do a movie, and I sign my contract with a movie studio, I agree that the studio will own the copyright to the movie. Which feels fair and non-threatening. The studio paid to make the movie, so it should get to monetize the movie however it wants. But if I had known that by signing this contract and allowing the studio to be the movie’s sole copyright holder, I would then be allowing the studio to use that intellectual property as training data for an AI that would put me out of a job forever, I would never have signed that contract."

2021 Year in Review; American Libraries, January 3, 2022

American Libraries ; 2021 Year in Review

Looking back at the news that affected libraries

"ALA Code of Ethics gains ninth principle

On June 29, ALA Council approved the addition of a new principle focused on equity, diversity, inclusion, and social justice:

“We affirm the inherent dignity and rights of every person. We work to recognize and dismantle systemic and individual biases; to confront inequity and oppression; to enhance diversity and inclusion; and to advance racial and social justice in our libraries, communities, profession, and associations through awareness, advocacy, education, collaboration, services, and allocation of resources and spaces.”...

Emergency broadband discount program launched

In May, the Federal Communications Commission launched its $3.2 billion Emergency Broadband Benefit program, which provides discounts on broadband internet service and digital devices for eligible low-income households...

ALA speaks out against anti-Asian hate crimes

On March 11, the ALA Executive Board issued a statement in solidarity with the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association’s stance recognizing and condemning anti-Asian violence. The Executive Board called on ALA members to condemn the “wave of anti-Asian language, hate speech, and physical assaults on streets across the country, in media reports, in statements by politicians, and on social media related to the origins of COVID-19.”"

Design Ethics: Rethinking Practice in 2021; ArchDaily, December 30, 2021

 Eric Baldwin, ArchDaily; Design Ethics: Rethinking Practice in 2021

"Ethical practice spans all parts of architecture. From intersectionality and labor to the climate crisis, a designer must work with a range of conditions and contexts that inform the built environment and the process of its creation. Across cultures, policies and climates, architecture is as much functional and aesthetic as it is political, social, economic, and ecological. By addressing the ethics of practice, designers can reimagine the discipline's impact and who it serves."

Online vaccine sign-ups make Internet access a matter of life and death; The Washington Post, March 4, 2021

Claire Park, The Washington Post ; Online vaccine sign-ups make Internet access a matter of life and death

"Getting a vaccine shouldn’t depend on having high-speed Internet service, a computer and familiarity with being online, but it often does. By reviewing digital resources such as The Washington Post’s tracker of vaccinations across the country, residents can stay informed about the coronavirus and sign up for vaccinations online. Yet more than 77 million people in the United States lack Internet at home — and worse, many of them do not have access to a smartphone, making it that much more difficult for them to learn what’s available when and to whom. According to a study from the Pew Research Center, more than 4 in 10 adults with incomes below $30,000 a year don’t have home broadband services or a computer, and 3 in 10 adults in the same income bracket don’t own a smartphone. And even when they are in the loop, these people must also resort to calling state hotlines and waiting for hours on hold to reserve what vaccination appointments remain after many have already been booked online. While some states and communities reserve a number of appointments daily for those calling in, most groups still assume that everyone has the time, Internet service and device to make their appointment on the Web.

Further, Black, Indigenous and Latino people, as well as older adults — the very populations hardest hit by the coronavirus — constitute a disproportionate share of those without Internet access. This means that despite efforts to prioritize vaccinations for those most at risk, people in these communities who lack the Internet service, devices or digital literacy they need to sign up for vaccines online are still left at higher risk of contracting and dying from the virus."

Dysfunctional websites are making it harder for Americans to get vaccinated. Here’s how to fix that.; The Washington Post, March 31, 2021

Drew Altman , The Washington Post; Dysfunctional websites are making it harder for Americans to get vaccinated. Here’s how to fix that.

"Another useful supplement to more consumer-friendly websites would be an 800 number, staffed in multiple languages, with real people answering to help those who aren’t web savvy make appointments. In addition to friends and family helping each other, Facebook groups and apps are springing up to guide people through the website mazes. But a lot of Americans are not tech savvy. Many have sluggish Internet, have only a handheld device or are not online at all. People shouldn’t be penalized for not being plugged in. Many Americans need a human being to help them. A person answering an 800-number would be better than no real-time help, as is often the case today. The media could hold state officials’ feet to the fire if the number works poorly."

 

DU discusses Catholic universities, LGBTQ+ community; The Duquesne Duke, February 25, 2021

 Kellen Stepler, The Duquesne Duke; DU discusses Catholic universities, LGBTQ+ community

"How can Catholic universities welcome LGBTQ+ students?

On Feb. 24, Duquesne’s Faculty Senate, Office of Diversity and Inclusion and the Gumberg Library held an event on Zoom with keynote speaker the Rev. James Martin titled, “Catholic Universities Welcoming LGBTQIA+ Students.”

Martin is the editor-at-large for the Jesuit Review magazine America and a consultor to the Dicastery for Communication of Vatican News. He shared practices to help Catholic colleges sustain an environment where LGBTQ+ students feel welcomed while honoring a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.

“Duquesne is already doing such wonderful work. Even by having a conversation like this shows that they are open and welcoming,” Martin said. “But we can all improve; everybody can sort of do better.”"...

Martin encouraged Catholic institutions to be clear and creative with programs that welcome LGBTQ+ individuals, to stand with them and to make the whole school a place where LGBTQ+ individuals can feel safe and supported.

“It’s important for gay students to know that they are not alone, that there are others like them on campus and for them to form a support,” Martin said.

Being open to learning new things, asking questions when you don’t understand and educating yourself and the school can also make an environment feel more inclusive."

Manifesto Promotes ‘Ethics, Equity, and Empathy’; STREETSBLOGUSA,September 20, 2019

Aaron Short, STREETSBLOGUSA;

Manifesto Promotes ‘Ethics, Equity, and Empathy’

A design firm publishes a new credo for engineers, policymakers, and planners.

"Maryland-based design firm is seeking to revolutionize the century-old credo that shapes how policymakers and engineers plan communities — in order to force planners to prioritize human beings over automobiles and think deeply about how their decisions affect road safety. 

Toole Design, which has 17 offices in the United States and Canada, last week released a manifesto that seeks to substitute new concepts for the traditional “three Es” — education, enforcement, and engineering — that have guided transportation professionals as they have built the infrastructure of our towns and cities.

The new “three Es” that Toole proposes — “ethics, equity, and empathy”  — replace the object- and rule-centered approach that dominates the discipline with a moral one centered on people."

N.Y. Mayor Taps Drexel Professor For First Algorithm Quality-Control Task Force; Drexel Now, June 4, 2018

Drexel Now; N.Y. Mayor Taps Drexel Professor For First Algorithm Quality-Control Task Force

"But how do we ensure that the algorithms are the impartial arbiters we expect them to be? Drexel University professor Julia Stoyanovich is part of the first group in the nation helping to answer this question in the biggest urban area in the world. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio tapped Stoyanovich to serve on the city’s Automated Decision Systems Task Force, a team charged with creating a process for reviewing algorithms through the lens of fairness, equity and accountability...

The [Automated Decision Systems] Task Force is the product of New York City’s algorithmic accountability law, which was passed in 2017 to ensure transparency in how the city uses automated decision systems. By 2019, the group must “provide recommendations about how agency automated decision systems data may be shared with the public and how agencies may address instances where people are harmed by agency automated decision systems,” according to one of the provisions of the law."

Here’s how Canada can be a global leader in ethical AI; The Conversation, February 22, 2018

Fenwick McKelvey, Abhishek Gupta, The Conversation;    Here’s how Canada can be a global leader in ethical AI

"Putting Canada in the lead

Canada has a clear choice. Either it embraces the potential of being a leader in responsible AI, or it risks legitimating a race to the bottom where ethics, equity and justice are absent.

Better guidance for researchers on how the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedomsrelates to AI research and development is a good first step. From there, Canada can create a just, equitable and stable foundation for a research agenda that situates the new technology within longstanding social institutions.

Canada also needs a more coordinated, inclusive national effort that prioritizes otherwise marginalized voices. These consultations will be key to positioning Canada as a beacon in this field.

Without these measures, Canada could lag behind. Europe is already drafting important new approaches to data protection. New York City launched a task force this fall to become a global leader on governing automated decision making. We hope this leads to active consultation with city agencies, academics across the sciences and the humanities as well as community groups, from Data for Black Lives to Picture the Homeless, and consideration of algorithmic impact assessments.

These initiatives should provide a helpful context as Canada develops its own governance strategy and works out how to include Indigenous knowledge within that.

If Canada develops a strong national strategy approach to AI governance that works across sectors and disciplines, it can lead at the global level.