📚 Lab Preparation

2024/25 Autumn Term

Author

The DS101A Team

Published

20 November 2024

🗺️ Context

Recommendation systems (RS) form a major part of our social and political lives. But are they a force for good? Whilst they can point users towards helpful suggestions on what to consume (e.g. a new product, unwatched movie or unread news article), their use poses a series of ethical challenges that need to be carefully considered. Several concrete examples (some of which have resulted in lawsuits) further indicate that, in fact, RS may result in significant harm both to individuals and societies at large. In this week’s lab, we will be exploring how RS are built, what / whose purpose they serve, the ethical and legal ramifications of RS, and heterogeneity in the design of RS.

📖 Lab Preparation

Please read the following articles before the week 8 lab.

🗞️ In the news

Booth, Roger and Elgot, Jessica (2024) “MPs to summon Elon Musk to testify about X’s role in UK summer riots”. The Guardian (Booth and Elgot 2024)
Daley, Benjamin (2024) “The UK DRCF take action over Recommender Systems and children’s privacy rights”. Trilateral Research Ethical AI (Daley 2024)

⚖️ Ethical / legal considerations

Chatterjee, Siddhant (2023) “Recommendation Systems: Ethical Challenges and the Regulatory Landscape”. Holistic AI – (Chatterjee 2023)
Holistic AI (2023) “Reducing AI Harms and Lawsuits through AI Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance”. Holistic AI – (Holistic AI 2023)

👉 NOTE: You do not need to read the whole of this paper (though it makes for interesting reading). Focus on the executive summary, introduction, and the Seattle School District v Big Tech and Gonzalez v Google cases.

Milano, Silvia and Mariarosaria, Taddeo and Floridi, Luciano (2020) “Recommender systems and their ethical challenges”. AI & Society 35, 957–967 – (Milano, Taddeo, and Floridi 2020)
Magrani, Eduardo and Guedes Fernandes da Silva, Paula (2023) “The Ethical and Legal Challenges of Recommender Systems Driven by Artificial Intelligence”. In: Sousa Antunes, H., Freitas, P.M., Oliveira, A.L., Martins Pereira, C., Vaz de Sequeira, E., Barreto Xavier, L. (eds) Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence and the Law. Law, Governance and Technology Series, vol 58. Springer, Cham.–(Magrani and Silva 2023)
Paraschakis, Dimitris (2017) “Towards an ethical recommendation framework”. 2017 11th International Conference on Research Challenges in Information Science (RCIS), Brighton, UK, 2017, pp. 211-220 – (Paraschakis 2017)
Ya Tang, Tiffany (2016) “I should not recommend it to you even if you will like it: the ethics of recommender systems”. New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia 22 (1–2): 111–38 – (Tang and Winoto 2016)

References

Booth, Roger, and Jessica Elgot. 2024. “MPs to Summon Elon Musk to Testify about x’s Role in UK Summer Riots.” The Guardian, November. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/nov/20/mps-summon-elon-musk-x-role-uk-summer-riots.

Chatterjee, Siddhant. 2023. “Recommendation Systems: Ethical Challenges and the Regulatory Landscape.” Holistic AI, July. https://www.holisticai.com/blog/recommendation-systems.

Daley, Benjamin. 2024. “The UK DRCF Take Action over Recommender Systems and Children’s Privacy Rights.” Trilateral Research, Ethical AI, August. https://trilateralresearch.com/cybersecurity/the-uk-drcf-take-action-over-recommender-systems-and-childrens-privacy-rights.

Holistic AI. 2023. “Reducing AI Harms and Lawsuits Through AI Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance.” Holistic AI, White Paper, May. https://www.holisticai.com/papers/reducing-ai-harms-and-lawsuits.

Magrani, Eduardo, and Paula Guedes Fernandes da Silva. 2023. “The Ethical and Legal Challenges of Recommender Systems Driven by Artificial Intelligence.” In Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence and the Law, 141–68. Springer International Publishing Cham. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-41264-6_8.

Milano, Silvia, Mariarosaria Taddeo, and Luciano Floridi. 2020. “Recommender Systems and Their Ethical Challenges.” Ai & Society 35: 957–67. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00146-020-00950-y.

Paraschakis, Dimitris. 2017. “Towards an Ethical Recommendation Framework.” In 2017 11th International Conference on Research Challenges in Information Science (RCIS), 211–20. IEEE. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7956539.

Tang, Tiffany Ya, and Pinata Winoto. 2016. “I Should Not Recommend It to You Even If You Will Like It: The Ethics of Recommender Systems.” New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia 22 (1-2): 111–38. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13614568.2015.1052099#d1e1535.