Diversity by Design? Balancing the Inclusion and Protection of Users in an Online Social Platform

The eponymous paper, written by WeNet partners, has been accepted for presentation at the upcoming edition of AAAI/ACM Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics and Society, which will be back as a hybrid event held in Oxford (UK).

Paula Helm (TU Munich, STS department – formerly WeNet member), who co-authored the paper with project partners Laura Schelenz (University of Tübingen) and Loizos Michael (Open University of Cyprus), will be presenting the publication at the event.

The paper can be read in its entirety in our “Scientific Publications” section – Here below, the abstract:

The unreflected promotion of diversity as a value in social interactions — including in technology-mediated ones — risks emphasizing the benefits of inclusion without recognizing the potential harm of failing to protect vulnerable individuals or account for the empowerment of marginalized groups. Adopting the position that technology is not value-neutral, we seek to answer the question of how technology-mediated social platforms can accommodate diversity by design by balancing the often tension-ridden principles of protection and inclusion. In this paper, we present our research program, developed strategy, as well as first analyses and results. Building on approaches from scenario analysis and Value Sensitive Design, we identify key arguments for a “diversity by design”-agenda. Furthermore, we discuss how these arguments can be operationalized and implemented in a diversity-aware chatbot and provide a critical reflection on the limits and drawbacks of the proposed approach.

Registration to AIES Conference is now open and includes admission to all technical paper and poster sessions, and invited talks – For more information: https://www.aies-conference.com/2022/