Moral Stress in Technical Practice: The Affective Experience of Ethics Tools

Sonja Rattay; Ville Vakkuri; Marco Rozendaal; Irina Shklovski

doi:10.1145/3677045.3685440

Moral Stress in Technical Practice: The Affective Experience of Ethics Tools

Sonja Rattay, Ville Vakkuri, Marco Rozendaal, Irina Shklovski

Human Information Communication Design

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceedings/Edited volume › Conference contribution › Scientific › peer-review

Abstract

Ethics toolkits, checklists and workshops are intended to help integrate ethical considerations into the design of data-driven systems. Yet little is known about what long-term effect such integrations might have. We conducted an ethnographic investigation of the adoption of an internal ethical toolkit in a major European city organization. We find that neither toolkit designers nor organizations that implement these, pay attention to the affective experience and emotional costs of integrating ethics toolkits into technology design team workflows. We demonstrate how moral awareness, while necessary for moral technical practice, also leads to unaccounted moral stress for practitioners.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	NordiCHI '24 Adjunct
Subtitle of host publication	Adjunct Proceedings of the 2024 Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction
Place of Publication	New York, NY
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Number of pages	5
ISBN (Electronic)	979-8-4007-0965-4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3677045.3685440
Publication status	Published - 2024
Event	13th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction - Uppsala, Sweden Duration: 13 Oct 2024 → 16 Oct 2024 https://www.nordichi2024.se/

Conference

Conference	13th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction
Abbreviated title	NordiCHI 2024
Country/Territory	Sweden
City	Uppsala
Period	13/10/24 → 16/10/24
Internet address	https://www.nordichi2024.se/

Bibliographical note

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care
Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

Keywords

AI ethics
Ethical sensitivity
Ethics in practice
Moral stress

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10.1145/3677045.3685440

Cite this

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title = "Moral Stress in Technical Practice: The Affective Experience of Ethics Tools",

abstract = "Ethics toolkits, checklists and workshops are intended to help integrate ethical considerations into the design of data-driven systems. Yet little is known about what long-term effect such integrations might have. We conducted an ethnographic investigation of the adoption of an internal ethical toolkit in a major European city organization. We find that neither toolkit designers nor organizations that implement these, pay attention to the affective experience and emotional costs of integrating ethics toolkits into technology design team workflows. We demonstrate how moral awareness, while necessary for moral technical practice, also leads to unaccounted moral stress for practitioners.",

keywords = "AI ethics, Ethical sensitivity, Ethics in practice, Moral stress",

author = "Sonja Rattay and Ville Vakkuri and Marco Rozendaal and Irina Shklovski",

note = "Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.; 13th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, NordiCHI 2024 ; Conference date: 13-10-2024 Through 16-10-2024",

year = "2024",

doi = "10.1145/3677045.3685440",

language = "English",

booktitle = "NordiCHI '24 Adjunct",

publisher = "Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)",

address = "United States",

url = "https://www.nordichi2024.se/",

}

Rattay, S, Vakkuri, V, Rozendaal, M & Shklovski, I 2024, Moral Stress in Technical Practice: The Affective Experience of Ethics Tools. in NordiCHI '24 Adjunct: Adjunct Proceedings of the 2024 Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction., 24, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), New York, NY, 13th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, Uppsala, Sweden, 13/10/24. https://doi.org/10.1145/3677045.3685440

Moral Stress in Technical Practice: The Affective Experience of Ethics Tools. / Rattay, Sonja; Vakkuri, Ville; Rozendaal, Marco et al.
NordiCHI '24 Adjunct: Adjunct Proceedings of the 2024 Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction. New York, NY: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 2024. 24.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceedings/Edited volume › Conference contribution › Scientific › peer-review

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AU - Shklovski, Irina

N1 - Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

PY - 2024

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AB - Ethics toolkits, checklists and workshops are intended to help integrate ethical considerations into the design of data-driven systems. Yet little is known about what long-term effect such integrations might have. We conducted an ethnographic investigation of the adoption of an internal ethical toolkit in a major European city organization. We find that neither toolkit designers nor organizations that implement these, pay attention to the affective experience and emotional costs of integrating ethics toolkits into technology design team workflows. We demonstrate how moral awareness, while necessary for moral technical practice, also leads to unaccounted moral stress for practitioners.

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CY - New York, NY

Y2 - 13 October 2024 through 16 October 2024

ER -

Moral Stress in Technical Practice: The Affective Experience of Ethics Tools

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Keywords

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