Bots as Virtual Confederates: Design and Ethics
The use of bots as virtual confederates in online field experiments holds extreme promise as a new methodological tool in computational social science. However, this potential tool comes with inherent ethical challenges. Informed consent can be difficult to obtain in many cases, and the use of confe...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
2021
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/137796 |
| _version_ | 1811075240820736000 |
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| author | Krafft, Peter M. Macy, Michael Pentland, Alex "Sandy" |
| author_facet | Krafft, Peter M. Macy, Michael Pentland, Alex "Sandy" |
| author_sort | Krafft, Peter M. |
| collection | MIT |
| description | The use of bots as virtual confederates in online field experiments holds extreme promise as a new methodological tool in computational social science. However, this potential tool comes with inherent ethical challenges. Informed consent can be difficult to obtain in many cases, and the use of confederates necessarily implies the use of deception. In this work we outline a design space for bots as virtual confederates, and we propose a set of guidelines for meeting the status quo for ethical experimentation. We draw upon examples from prior work in the CSCW community and the broader social science literature for illustration. While a handful of prior researchers have used bots in online experimentation, our work is meant to inspire future work in this area and raise awareness of the associated ethical issues. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T10:02:58Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/137796 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T10:02:58Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publisher | Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1377962021-11-09T03:32:29Z Bots as Virtual Confederates: Design and Ethics Krafft, Peter M. Macy, Michael Pentland, Alex "Sandy" The use of bots as virtual confederates in online field experiments holds extreme promise as a new methodological tool in computational social science. However, this potential tool comes with inherent ethical challenges. Informed consent can be difficult to obtain in many cases, and the use of confederates necessarily implies the use of deception. In this work we outline a design space for bots as virtual confederates, and we propose a set of guidelines for meeting the status quo for ethical experimentation. We draw upon examples from prior work in the CSCW community and the broader social science literature for illustration. While a handful of prior researchers have used bots in online experimentation, our work is meant to inspire future work in this area and raise awareness of the associated ethical issues. 2021-11-08T19:30:39Z 2021-11-08T19:30:39Z 2017-02 2019-07-26T16:55:01Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/ConferencePaper https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/137796 Krafft, Peter M., Macy, Michael and Pentland, Alex "Sandy". 2017. "Bots as Virtual Confederates: Design and Ethics." en 10.1145/2998181.2998354 Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) arXiv |
| spellingShingle | Krafft, Peter M. Macy, Michael Pentland, Alex "Sandy" Bots as Virtual Confederates: Design and Ethics |
| title | Bots as Virtual Confederates: Design and Ethics |
| title_full | Bots as Virtual Confederates: Design and Ethics |
| title_fullStr | Bots as Virtual Confederates: Design and Ethics |
| title_full_unstemmed | Bots as Virtual Confederates: Design and Ethics |
| title_short | Bots as Virtual Confederates: Design and Ethics |
| title_sort | bots as virtual confederates design and ethics |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/137796 |
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