ABSTRACT
Recent advances in machine learning have dramatically expanded the situations in which artificial intelligence (AI) applications are being used. Increasingly decisions that affect people are being made by machines with inadequate ongoing testing, poor oversight, little training of frontline staff, and few processes ability to challenge the results. In this chapter, we will survey three areas of ethical issues related to the use of AI and discuss how the Digital Humanities can make a difference in practice.
The focus of this chapter is not to provide a philosophical overview but to provide a practical guide for humanists interested in being involved in projects that use AI in ways that impact others. We will argue for an ethics of care approach to the curation of data and the ongoing improvement of systems. Drawing on feminist ideas of care and repair, we will argue that projects, whether research or production, should not think of ethics as a box to be checked or a problem to be solved, but as an ongoing form of thinking through the consequences of innovation with others.
