Hosts

Sara Ljungblad (Associate professor of Interaction Design, Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Gothenburg and Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden), sara.ljungblad@chalmers.se

Ylva Hård af Segerstad (Professor of Communication, Dept. of Applied IT, University of Gothenburg, Sweden), ylva.hard-af-segerstad@ait.gu.se

Opening speakers:

Annette Markham (Chair Professor of Future Digital Literacy and Public Engagement, Utrecht University, the Netherlands) and

Gordana Dodig Crnkovic (Professor of Computer Science, Mälardalen University & Professor of Interaction Design, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden)

About

Critics of literature, music, art and theater is essentially understood as a foundational appreciated practice with a well-established role in society (Idhe, 1998). They bring nuanced perspectives of critical questions that is reflected in the work and how this sheds light on the society. Some research areas within AI and autonomous systems,  such as human-robot interaction, has traditionally a weaker tradition of unfolding criticality beyond ethical principles and guidelines (Ljungblad et al, 2018, Ljungblad et al., 2023). The biomedical heritage of ethical guidelines has been critiqued for decades by social science and humanities research communities as they are ill-suited and outdated when it comes to qualitative social research, as well as digitally saturated or data-implicated research contexts (Markham, 2023).  There is a risk that engagement with research ethics frequently remains superficial, formulaic, and focused on procedures rather than the application of ethical thinking to the practical concerns of research and socio-technical development to achieve ethically responsible research and design (Hård af Segerstad, Kasperowski, Kullenberg & Howes, 2017). Thus, there is a growing urgency for adopting broader perspectives and delving into critical inquiries concerning the actual and prompted integration of AI and autonomous systems into everyday life. WASP-HS is an excellent research initiative where criticality and ethics relevant for technology such as AI and autonomous systems can build on traditions from the arts and humanities in unfolding criticality and ethical perspectives essential for high quality research that benefit a democratic society.

This workshop aims to provide researchers and other interested stakeholders (such as industry experts and designers) with hands-on opportunities to delve into criticality and ethics, addressing methodological and epistemological concerns in their practices. We welcome participants from diverse disciplines, such as Human Computer Interaction (HCI), Human Robot Interaction (HRI), Science and Technology studies (STS), Software Engineering, Law, Design, Sociology, Anthropology, Education, Media Studies, Communication, Ethics, Philosophy of technology, Applied ethics and more for an exploration of their work related to the theme of the workshop.

The workshop is a halfday event and will begin with opening remarks from Annette Markham (Chair Professor of Future Digital Literacy and Public Engagement, Utrecht University, the Netherlands) and Gordana Dodig Crnkovic (Professor of Computer Science, Mälardalen University & Professor of Interaction Design, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden), who will lay the groundwork for the session. The workshop will then proceed with participants engaging in hands-on activities focusing on unfolding, sketching and discussing ethical and critical considerations for a researcher’s emerging “ethical compass”.

We invite participants to send a 2 page submission, bringing their own view and application of criticality and ethical implications in research to the table.

We welcome submissions that reflect on, but not limited to, the following aspects:

• Positionality and bias in the research process
• Criticality in research practices
• Vulnerability
• Normates and normativity
• Moral blindness
• Critical inquiry
• Critical robotics
• Ethics of care and other ethical directions
• Sustainability in research
• Ethics as entaglement
• More than human perspectives
• Responsible AI
• Responsible robotics
• Artistic perspectives of ethics and criticality
• Research processes without any ethical challenges
• Research processes with severe ethical challenges
• Unethical and ethical aspects of ethical review processes

Submission deadline: 17 October 2024

Please note that in order to participate in a workshop you must also register for the conference via the event page.

References

Frauenberger, C. (2019). Entanglement HCI the next wave?. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), 27(1), 1-27.

Hård af Segerstad, Y., Kasperowski, D., Kullenberg, C. & Howes, C. (2017). Studying Closed Communities On-line: Digital Methods and Ethical Considerations Beyond Informed Consent and Pseudonymity. In M. Zimmer & K. Kinder-Kurlanda (Eds.), Internet Research Ethics for the Social Age: New Cases and Challenges: Peter Lang. (213-225).

Ljungblad, S., Serholt, S., Milosevic, T., Bhroin, N. N., Nørgård, R. T., Lindgren, P., … & Obaid, M. (2018). Critical robotics: exploring a new paradigm. In Proceedings of the 10th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (pp. 972-975).

Markham, A. (in press). Ethics. In Mork Lomell, H., and Kaufman, Mareile (Eds). Handbook on Digital Criminology (pp forthcoming). De Gruyter Press.

Wang, Z., Hu, Z., Rohles, B., Ljungblad, S., Koenig, V., & Fjeld, M. (2023). The effects of natural sounds and proxemic distances on the perception of a noisy domestic flying robot. ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction, 12(4), 1-32.