The technology behind self-driving cars is quickly evolving. As the transition from manually driven cars to autonomous cars is approaching, we need to assess certain ethical implications. Which abilities or traits do we want to give the AI behind the wheel of these vehicles?
As psychologists we wield a lot of power over people: We research them, teach them how to think about themselves and others, and we get to decide whether or not they are ill. Perhaps all this power is justified – after all Psychology is “the study of the mind and behaviour” and the “enterprise” of […]
Marcus Munafò is Professor of Biological Psychology at the University of Bristol. His main research is on the neurobiological and genetic basis for tobacco and alcohol use, but he has also had a long-standing interest in the role of incentive structures in science, and their impact on research reproducibility. His scientific work on science (metascience) […]
… management, of course. Everybody likes research and over the last couple of years it has become fashionable to speak of the importance of teaching and what a noble and enjoyable task it is, but people seldom mention management. Maarten Derksen sheds light on the third pillar of academia.
Facebook recently revealed that it manipulated the content of the News Feeds of some of its users by changing the number of positive and negative words they were exposed to, without their knowledge or consent. Maarten Derksen weighs in on this and the ethics of informed consent.
Academic administrators have responded to recent cases of misconduct by commissioning a multitude of regulations and protocols. The scientific code of conduct of the VSNU is an attempt to formulate the scientific ethos, but it works better as a discussion piece.