Professor Chris Goodman Quoted in "Ethical Social Media: Oxymoron or Attainable Goal?" -- O'Reilly Radar

Professor Christine Chambers Goodman is quoted in the O'Reilly Radar article, "Ethical Social Media: Oxymoron or Attainable Goal?" The article examines the challenges and framework for applying ethical guidelines to social media.

Excerpt from "Ethical Social Media: Oxymoron or Attainable Goal?"

Christine Chambers Goodman, a professor at Pepperdine University's Caruso School of Law, has written extensively on the topic of artificial intelligence and its impact on society. She sees potential in applying AI guidelines to social media, and she cited the European Commission's High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence's seven key ethical requirements for trustworthy AI:

• Human agency and oversight
• Technical robustness and safety
• Privacy and data governance
• Transparency
• Diversity, non-discrimination and fairness
• Societal and environmental well-being
• Accountability

The commission's proposed requirements for AI would be a good starting point for conversations about ethical social media. Ideally, basic ethical components would be designed into social media platforms before they are built. Software engineers should be trained to recognize their own biases and learn specific techniques for writing code that is inherently fair and non-discriminatory.

"It starts with that first requirement of human agency and oversight," Goodman says. If ethical standards are "paramount" during the design phase of a platform, "then I see some room for optimism."

Colleges and universities also can play important roles in training a new generation of ethical software engineers by requiring students to take classes in ethics, she says.

The complete article may be found at O'Reilly Radar