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The purpose of this paper is to examine how robotics program developers perceived the role of emulation of human ethics when programming robots for use in educational settings. A purposive sampling of online robotics program developer professional sites which focused on the role of emulation of human ethics used when programming robots for use in educational settings was included in the study. Content related to robotics program developers’ perceptions on educational uses of robots and ethics were analyzed.

The design for this study was a qualitative summative content analysis. The researchers analyzed keywords related to a phenomenon. The phenomenon was the emulation of human ethics programmed in robots. Articles selected to be analyzed in this study were published by robotics program developers who focused on robots and ethics in the education. All articles analyzed in this study were posted online, and the public has complete access to the studies.

Robotics program developers viewed the importance of situational human ethics interpretations and implementations. To facilitate flexibility, robotics program developers programmed robots to search computer-based ethics related research, frameworks and case studies. Robotics program developers acknowledged the importance of human ethics, but they felt more flexibility was needed in the role of how classroom human ethical models were created, developed and used. Some robotic program developers expressed questions and concerns about the implementations of flexible robot ethical accountability levels and behaviors in the educational setting. Robotics program developers argued that educational robots were not designed or programmed to emulate human ethics.

One limitation of the study was 32 online, public articles written by robotics program designers analyzed through qualitative content analysis to find themes and patterns. In qualitative content analysis studies, findings may not be as generalizable as in quantitative studies. Another limitation was only a limited number of articles written by robotics programs existed which addressed robotics and emulation of human ethics in the educational setting.

The significance of this study is the need for a renewed global initiative in education to promote debates, research and on-going collaboration with scientific leaders on ethics and programming robots. The implication for education leaders is to provide ongoing professional development on the role of ethics in education and to create best practices for using robots in education to promote increased student learning and enhance the teaching process.

The implications of this study are global. All cultures will be affected by the robotics’ shift in how students are taught ethical decision making in the educational setting. Robotics program developers will create computational educational moral models which will replace archetypal educational ethics frameworks. Because robotics program developers do not classify robots as human, educators, parents and communities will continue to question the use of robots in educational settings, and they will challenge robotics ethical dilemmas, moral standards and computational findings. The examination of robotics program developers’ perspectives through different lens may help close the gap and establish a new understanding among all stakeholders.

Four university doctoral faculty members conducted this content analysis study. After discussions on robotics and educational ethics, the researchers discovered a gap in the literature on the use of robots in the educational setting and the emulation of human ethics in robots. Therefore, to explore the implications for educators, the researchers formed a group to research the topic to learn more about the topic. No personal gains resulted from the study. All research was original. All cultures will be affected by the robotics’ shift in how students are taught ethical decision making in the educational setting. Robotics program developers will create computational educational moral models which will replace archetypal educational ethics frameworks. Because robotics program developers do not classify robots as human, educators, parents and communities will continue to question the use of robots in educational settings, and they will challenge robotics ethical dilemmas, moral standards, and computational findings. The examination of robotics program developers’ perspectives through different lens may help close the gap and establish a new understanding among all stakeholders.

As data-driven tools increasingly shape our life and tech ethics crises become strikingly frequent, data ethics coursework is urgently needed. The purpose of this study is to map the field of data ethics curricula, tracking relations between courses, instructors, texts and writers, and present a proof-of-concept interactive website for exploring these relations. This method is designed to be used in curricular research and development and provides multiple vantage points on this multidisciplinary field.

The authors use data science methods to foster insights about the field of data ethics education and literature. The authors present a semantic, linked open data graph in the Resource Description Framework, along with proof-of-concept analyses and an exploratory website. Its framework is open-source and language-agnostic, providing the seed for future contributions of code, syllabi and resources from the global data ethics community.

This method provides a convenient means of exploring an overview of the field of data ethics’ social and textual relations. For educators designing or refining a course, the authors provide a method for curricular introspection and discovery of transdisciplinary curricula.

The syllabi the authors have collected are self-selected and represent only a subset of the field. Furthermore, this method exclusively represents a course’s assigned literature rather than a holistic view of what courses teach. The authors present a prototype rather than a finished product.

This curricular survey provides a new way of modeling a field of study, using existing ontologies to organize graph data into a comprehensible overview. This framework may be repurposed to map the institutional knowledge structures of other disciplines, as well.

The paper aims to present a framework for discussing ethics and computational design.

The main propositions of computational design are presented, discussed according to different authors and contrasted with cybernetic principles.

The paper finds that with algorithmic and parametric procedures, architects are using computation to reach a hitherto unknown ease of modelling multiple iterations of a design, so they can expand their possible design scenarios and cope with the uncertainties of ill-defined tasks. However, this strategy faces an ethical limitation because they fail to extend this openness to the final segment of the design chain, the user in the act of dwelling.

The paper brings a cybernetic perspective for discussing the often-overlooked ethical implications of computational strategies in design.

Applied computational ontologies (ACOs) are increasingly used in data science domains to produce semantic enhancement and interoperability among divergent data. The purpose of this paper is to propose and implement a methodology for researching the sociotechnical dimensions of data-driven ontology work, and to show how applied ontologies are communicatively constituted with ethical implications.

The underlying idea is to use a data assemblage approach for studying ACOs and the methods they use to add semantic complexity to digital data. The author uses a mixed methods approach, providing an analysis of the widely used Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) through digital methods and visualizations, and presents historical research alongside unstructured interview data with leading experts in BFO development.

The author found that ACOs are products of communal deliberation and decision making across institutions. While ACOs are beneficial for facilitating semantic data interoperability, ACOs may produce unintended effects when semantically enhancing data about social entities and relations. ACOs can have potentially negative consequences for data subjects. Further critical work is needed for understanding how ACOs are applied in contexts like the semantic web, digital platforms, and topic domains. ACOs do not merely reflect social reality through data but are active actors in the social shaping of data.

The paper presents a new approach for studying ACOs, the social impact of ACO work, and describes methods that may be used to produce further applied ontology studies.

The production of news through artificial intelligence (AI) is a reality in many countries, including the United States, where two leading companies in this area are based. The purpose of this explanatory bibliographic research is to discuss who or what should bear the ethical responsibility for automated writing in a newsroom, considering that codes of ethics address only the conduct of people. This chapter compares the Code of Ethics of the National Federation of Brazilian Journalists with the code used in the United States and highlights examples of news released with incorrect information, produced by algorithms, and published by US news organizations. Facing the current informational scenario, the ethical responsibility of the automated news must be attributed to the media, represented in the figure of the editor. Such a conclusion is motivated by the fact that neither the algorithm nor the person who developed it takes part in the decision-making process of publishing an article or not.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the question of equipping fully autonomous robotic weapons with the capacity to kill. Current ideas concerning the feasibility and advisability of developing and deploying such weapons, including the proposal that they be equipped with a so-called “ethical governor”, are reviewed and critiqued. The perspective adopted for this study includes software engineering practice as well as ethical and legal aspects of the use of lethal autonomous robotic weapons.

In the paper, the author survey and critique the applicable literature.

In the current paper, the author argue that fully autonomous robotic weapons with the capacity to kill should neither be developed nor deployed, that research directed toward equipping such weapons with a so-called “ethical governor” is immoral and serves as an “ethical smoke-screen” to legitimize research and development of these weapons and that, as an ethical duty, engineers and scientists should condemn and refuse to participate in their development.

This is a new approach to the argument for banning autonomous lethal robotic weapons based on classical work of Joseph Weizenbaum, Helen Nissenbaum and others.

This chapter describes how the technologies of big data might apply to rural contexts. It considers the relative advantages and disadvantages of such ‘new’ innovations.

It uses two case studies, one of online community specialist groups linked to rural activities and a second from a policy shift relating to firearm legislation in the English context.

The chapter suggests that digital data in the forms discussed here can be both benign and underutilised in its potential. In relation to the management of datasets holding information on firearm owners, these need careful reflection regarding their establishment, access and general use.

The chapter provides insight into the rural context and makes a case that such locales are not immune from the influence of the dataverse. The appearance of ‘big data’ here is not without political implications. The case of UK firearm legislation reform demonstrates the implications of policy falling short of its potential and how a social science analysis can unpack the operation of power as well as position the debate more broadly.

In order to further advance the research of social bots, based on the latest research trends and in line with international research frontiers, it is necessary to understand the global research situation in social bots.

Choosing Web of Science™ Core Collections as the data sources for searching social bots research literature, this paper visually analyzes the processed items and explores the overall research progress and trends of social bots from multiple perspectives of the characteristics of publication output, major academic communities and active research topics of social bots by the method of bibliometrics.

The findings offer insights into research trends pertaining to social bots and some of the gaps are also identified. It is recommended to further expand the research objects of social bots in the future, not only focus on Twitter platform and strengthen the research of social bot real-time detection methods and the discussion of the legal and ethical issues of social bots.

Most of the existing reviews are all for the detection methods and techniques of social bots. Unlike the above reviews, this study is a systematic literature review, through the method of quantitative analysis, comprehensively sort out the research output in social bots and shows the latest research trends in this area and suggests some research indirections that need to be focused in the future. The findings will provide references for subsequent scholars to research on social bots.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-06-2021-0336.

This chapter conceptualizes computational methods across three related, yet distinct approaches: (1) Social Simulation, (2) Data Science, and (3) Big Data. Group communication research is then situated and reviewed along these three lines of research. Although some areas have considerable visibility (e.g., network analysis, text mining), some areas are less visible in group communication research (e.g., Social Simulation, Big Data designs). The chapter concludes with suggestions for issues regarding reliability, validity, and ethics.

As interest in technology ethics is increasing, so is the interest in bringing schools of ethics from non-Western philosophical traditions to the field, particularly when it comes to information and communication technology. In light of this development and recent publications that result from it, this paper aims to present responds critically to recent work on Confucian virtue ethics (CVE) and technology.

Four critiques are presented as theoretical challenges to CVE in technology, claiming that current literature insufficiently addresses: overall applicability, collective ethics issues, epistemic overconfidence within technology corporations and amplification of epistemic overconfidence by the implementation of CVE. These challenges make use of general CVE literature and work on technology critique, political philosophy, epistemology and business ethics.

Implementing CVE in technology may yield some benefits, but these may be outweighed by other outcomes, include strengthening hierarchies, widening inequities, increasing, rather than limiting, predictive activity, personal data collection, misinformation, privacy violations and challenges to the democratic process.

Though not directly advocating against CVE, the paper reveals hitherto unidentified and serious issues that should be addressed before CVE are used to inform ethics guidelines or regulatory policies. It also serves as a foundation for further inquiry into how Eastern philosophy more broadly can inform technology ethics in the West.