# RRI Script: rri-100-1

###### tags: `RRI Skills track'

**Slides and Notes**
[TOC]

:::info
* Think slide 4+5 are duplicates
* Slides 35 - 38 need examples :)

:::

## Header Slide (with video overlay of course instructor)

[Introduction of the module instructor (e.g. "Hi, I'm...")

Welcome to Module 1 of the Responsible Research Innovation Skills Track, developed as part of the Turing Commons project at The Alan Turing Institute.

The Turing Commons comprises a variety of resources and tools to help you reflect, discuss, and take responsibility for the design, development, deployment, and use of data-driven technologies regardless of your background.

This module is the first in our Responsible Research and Innovation skills track, and it provides a conceptual introduction to the programme of responsible research and innovation in data science and AI.

On behalf of the Turing Commons team, we hope you enjoy the module.

-----------------------

## Slide 1

Responsible scientific research and technological innovation (RRI) is a vital component of a flourishing and fair society.

As an area of study and a mode of enquiry, RRI plays a central role within academic, public, private, and third-sector organisations.

This course will explore what it means to take (individual and collective) responsibility for the processes and outcomes of research and innovation in data science and AI.

The notion of 'responsibility' employed throughout this course will be grounded in an understanding of the moral relationship between science, technology, and society, exploring both historical and contemporary examples of RRI practices.

As well as looking at the theoretical basis of RRI this course will also take a hands-on approach by exploring a variety of tools and procedures that can help operationalise and implement a robust notion of responsibility within research and innovation practices.

This skills track is for researchers with an active interest in data science or AI research and innovation. This doesn't mean you have to be a data scientist, or a researcher using R or Python to analyse data. You could be an ethicist, sociologist, or someone with an interest in law and policy. However, the module is oriented towards research issues and related topics.

## Slide 2
To get a better understanding of what responsible research innovation is, this module is broken down into four components;

Understanding responsibility,
Defining Responsible Research and Innvovation,
Collective and Distributed Responsibility,
and The Scope and Horizon of Responsibility.

## Slide 3
This first section, Understanding resonsibility, is then divided into four subsections.

## Slide 4
The first is an introduction, followed by an explanation of the differences between responsibility and accountability, take a look at two questions on responsibility in science and technology and lastly, look at the different types of responsibility.

## Slide 5
Let's start with the introduction to this section.

## Slide 6
***No notes for slide 6*** Starting slide / engaging

## Slide 7
As technology continues to influence how we interact with and react to the world, new technologies can often create novel and sometimes unexpected means to transgress moral and social norms.

For example, in every day life it can often be considered rude not to pay attention when someone is speaking with you.

However, the shift to online communication technologies, brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, has resulted in changing these expectations and redefining norms of what we initially considered rude.

Let's consider Zoom chat etiquette here; is it rude to use the chat function during a group meeting? Does it enable additional means for communicating that bring more people into the conversation, or does it just create distracting back channels akin to passing notes at the back of a classroom?

## Slide 8
Addressing these questions and challenges can be difficult for a number of reasons:

And we have to consider the following, among many others;

* How can we be confident that we have reached a satisfactory, acceptable, or morally permissible conclusion?

* Which processes can we follow to help us justify and be confident in our conclusions?

and

* Who should be a part of the deliberative process, and are there barriers that prevent some groups from participating?

Having a framework to help address these questions, among others, can be incredibly useful.

## Slide 9
Responsible Research and Innovation can provide a framework for reflecting on, anticipating, and deliberating about the ethical, social, and legal questions that arise in the research and development of scientific and technological tools, practices, and systems.

## Slide 10
If we could capture the essence of the motivation for using Responsible Research Innovation as a framework in a single sentence, we'd be hard pressed to find a better summary than this:

"Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral".
This is a quote by Melvin Kranzberg, an American historian focussing on technology and it's interactions with society.

Evaluating whether technology is likely to create harms versus opportunities, and identifying how such harms and opportunities are distributed throughout society will always be complex and nuanced.

## Slide 11
However, if we can't address these challenges in a reasonable and socially acceptable manner, we'll be unable to take responsibility over the research and development of disruptive data-driven technologies that pervade our societies.

## Slide 12
Taking our introduction to the module into consideration, we're now going to take a closer look at the concepts of 'responsibility' and 'accountability'.

## 13, 14, 15
We're familiar with the concepts of 'responsibility' [next slide] and 'accountability'[next slide] , which are often treated as synonyms in everyday conversation.

But in this module we'll be reviewing these concepts as technical terms with precise and differing meanings.

## Slide 16
This difference will be made clearer as we progress with the module but for the time being, this little graphic marking the conceptual flow will hopefully help clarify an important difference.

## Slide 17
Accountability is something that is applied retroactively. For example, a person is held accountable for the consequences of their actions once they have already done them.

## Slide 18
However, responsibility is forward-looking. Responsibility is an attitude, duty, or moral virtue and is something we take up and carry with us in advance of, and as we interact with others in the world.

This directionality is important. Many of the practical methods and tools discussed in this skills track have an anticipatory property associated with them. That is, they can be used to reflect upon the consequences of our actions before and during we undertake them.
In this sense they reflect the forward-looking property of responsibility.
> []not 100% sure what is meant by this!

## Slide 19
Now that we've summarised the key difference in responsibility and accountability, we'll take a look at two big questions that can help us unpack the concept of 'responsibility' a bit better.

## Slide 20
We're going to take a detailed look at two prime examples of the concept. One from theoretical philosophy, the harmless torturer, and one (tragically) from real life, on the applications of the Manhattan Project.

## Slide 21
Let's start with the latter.
In April 1945, Michael Polanyi, a chemist and sociologist of science and Bertrand Russell, a philosopher and logician, were speaking on a radio show about the practical implications of the famous formula, E equals M C squared.

On the show, they were asked whether the formula had any practical applications for society, but neither could provide an answer. Then, three months later the Manhattan project dropped the first of their three atomic bombs.

## Slide 22
As the equation E equals M C squared is Einstein's special theory of relativity --- do you think Einstein had any responsibility for the consequences of the Manhattan Project and it's effects on society?

## Slide 23
Let's turn to example of the The Harmless Torturer now.

Derek Parfit a British philosopher of ethics, famously offered a series of thought experiments concerning so-called “harmless torturers” in 1984.

In the first scenario of his thought experiment, you enter a room and see an individual strapped to a chair, connected to various pads and wires that deliver an electric current to the victim.

In front of you, there's a dial with numbers ranging from 1 to 1000 that control these electric currents. You turn the dial by a single increment, increasing the electrical current soooo slightly that the victim is completely unable to perceive any difference in intensity.

While the first scenario is certainly not a morally praiseworthy action, you could not be plausibly held responsible for causing any harm.

Parfit then invites you to run the thought experiment for a second time. In this version, you turn the dial by the same small, and imperceptible, increment. But, at the same time as you're do this, 999 other people are all turning similarly connected dials, by one increment each.

The net result of this collective action is an intensely painful electric shock that ends up killing the restrained victim.

## Slide 24
Now, what is your level of responsibility for killing the individual in the second scenario as part of this collective act?

## Slide 25
Let's now update Parfit's original thought experiment and look at a modern application of it.

In this version, you're waiting for a bus, exhausted from a long day at work. You're mindlessly scrolling through a list of possible videos on Facebook, or TikTok or Twitter that have been presented to you by a recommendation system, powering that video streaming app.

You pause to watch a video of a fiery argument between two political pundits, in which one of them “destroys” their opposition. Ordinarily you would avoid selecting such a video, knowing that it is likely to be needlessly polarising and sensationalist. However, you’re tired and bored and occasionally enjoy a spectacle as much as everyone else.

Unfortunately, at a similar time, 999 other individuals, with similar viewing histories to yourself click on that same recommended video. The effect is that the recommendation system, which powers the social media platform, ends up learning that users similar to yourself and the 999 other individuals are likely to click on videos of this nature towards the end of the day.

The result being that in the future, this recommdendation system will be more likely to recommend similarly low-quality, politically polarising videos to other users.

## Slide 26
Let's ask the same question again as in Parfit's original example, in a different format. Where does responsibility for the spread of content that has the potential for causing political polarisation within society now lie?

## Slide 27
We're going to move on to types of responsibility now, the final sub section in this track.

---- TO DO

## Slide 28
As well as differentiating the concepts of 'responsibility' from 'accountability', we're also going to take a look at several different types of responsibility and their applications.

## Slide 29
Firstly, we have moral Responsibility.

All moral agents, that is, those with the capacity for ethical decision-making, are capable of receiving praise or blame for their actions especially where they're obligated to act because of some moral duty.

Therefore, when we think about moral responsibility, we are thinking about acting in accordance to some moral duty or duties, regardless of whether it is required from us by law, or by the norms imposed on us by our society.

For example, most of us would agree we have a moral responsibility (in most cases of day to day life) to try to act in a way that does not harm other individuals.

## Slide 30
In contrast, legal Responsibility is directly tied to the law. That is, people's legal responsibilities are defined by what the law says about what is permitted or prohibited to do.

The law can compel people to act in specific ways.
People who work in the public sector may have specific duties known as public sector duties, where public authorities have a duty to consider or think about how their policies or decisions affect people who are protected under the Equality Act.

Alternatively, the law can state that people must refrain from acting in a particular manner, such as for example criminal or civil offences.

## Slide 31
Professional Responsibility addresses the roles or responsibilities that are expected of a person in a their capacity as a member of a team or organisation.

FOr example, the responsibility to carry out research in accordance with institutional norms, processes and best practices.

## Slide 32
Finally, we also have societal responsibility.

These are expectations on individuals and businesses (such as corporate social responsibility) to act with awareness and appreciation of social, cultural, economic, and environmental issues.

Societal responsibility is often seen as demanding more from businesses than of individuals, as businesses may have overriding responsibilities towards their families or local communities.

## Slide 33
We've mentioned moral and legal responsibility, but it's worth looking at these in a little more detail and seeing what further distinctions we can draw between the duties of these types of responsibility.

## Slide 34
Both morality and the law impose obligations on individuals and organisations.

## Slide 35
These duties can be either positive (i.e. requiring action).
For example, it is usually accepted that one has a moral duty to help a stranger on the street asking for help, at least if doing so will require a negligible level of effort or cost from us.
In section 4 of this module, we will look at a famous example of this proposed by philosopher Peter Singer, sometimes refered to as 'the child in the pond'.

## SLide 36
However, duties can also be negative (i.e. requiring inaction).
These are a lot of what we can intuitively think as moral duties to do no harm.
For example, most people agree we have a duty to not kill or physically harm other people.

## Slide 37
As you may have noticed, the law tends to impose more negative duties upon individuals than positive duties, whereas morality can often be more demanding.

The legal systems usually focuses more on actions which are prohibited, yet refrains from imposing certain actions or ways of living to individuals, at least in modern liberal societies.

However, just because something is legal it does not mean that it is moral.
Morality is usually seen as more demanding, and there are plenty of cases where even though someone can act accordance with the law, yet the public opinion still condemns their actions.
[ADD EXAMPLE]

## 38
Let's look at the following quote from Potter Stewart, an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America.

"Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do."

Potter captures our previous point well, in that moral responsibility involves nuance on behalf of individual judgement.

That is, you may have a right to do something as in, it is the law does not explicitly prohibit you from doing something, but you might still refrain from doing so out of an ethical assessment of the action.

## 39
'Supererogatory' duties are what moral philosophers refer to as duties that compel action beyond what is simply permissible. Namely, things that go above and beyond the duties of law or social code.

In the context of morality, a person could receive praise for going above and beyond (such as donating a significant portion of one's income to charity), but there is equally no blame or praise for not doing so, and simply acting in line with minimal obligations.

## Slide 40
In contrast to this nuance, the law tends to set the minimal threshold for acceptable behaviour while remaining silent on what constitutes morally praiseworthy behaviour.

However, duties on public sector organisations are typical exceptions to this rule. For instance, the Public Sector Equality Duty in the UK requires public sector organisations to "Advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not" (constituting a positive duty), as well as avoiding discrimination (which constitutes a negative duty).

## Slide 41
We've come to the end of our section on what is responsible research and innovation where we've looked at understanding responsibility, it's difference to accountability, some philosophical queries to address it, and it's many forms.

In section 2, we'll move onto collective and distributed responsibilty where we'll discuss XXX.

> [bnea]Do you have a sentence summary of the next topics?

## Quiz
- To add a video, use a page (content then add )
- Can choose multiple questions
- True/false and multiple choice

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