Comment by fwn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fwn | Hacker News Reader

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I know talking ethics beyond buzzwords is a karma killer on HN, but I'm unteachable. I promise: no evil intentions.

> [...] Conducting a study on unknowing testsubjects which aims to influence the subject is an ethical question. [...]

As far as I understood it you are just restating what our parent already said with:

> [...] How is this study ethically responsible? [...] They’re studying the long-term perceptual impact of advertising on test subjects who did not authorize being participants in this experiment. [...]

It's not sufficient to state that there's an ethical argument to make the argument an ethical argument. This is important, because it's the only way to productively talk about ethical concerns at all - irrespective of how one feels regarding this particular issue.

An argument based on ethics is usually founded in some set of value propositions. Often a case gets structured/applied along those propositions in the argument.

> [...] Picture for example the nocebo effect, there are only limited studies on humans, as inducing these negative effects on unknowing subjects is extremely unethical. [...]

That does appear to be the ethical standard case from clinical research. You've test subjects with a variation of intentions, knowledge and consent as well as (for the most part) clearly isolatable harm.

One would first find the obvious ethical fault in intentionally inducing the risk of harming someone and subsequently start healing/weighting through something like consent, individual and humanitarian utility, etc. (That's roughly what you described as part of an ethics board workflow.)

Now back to this case: How do we quantify harm induced by a change regarding LinkedIn ad-density? It's not clear to me that there is any risk for induced harm even if all (100%) posts visible on LinkedIn were ads.

Next question would be consent, but since I wanted to start with the strongest argument first, I'll stick with the harm.

This is why I would like to know how the ethical argument against this study works.

I think we might be talking past each other. The procedural concern you mentioned is an ethical concern, a departure from the procedure is the unethical part.

Just having an ethical consideration doesnt preempt the conclusion of that consideration. I am talking ethical consideration not ethical statement. The consideration part might be summarized like you did here

> How do we quantify harm induced by a change regarding LinkedIn ad-density?

For the consideration what negative effects there are, there are ethic boards, as its generally considered unethical to make that consideration alone as a stakeholder. Forgoing the conclusion of that consideration doesnt mean we didnt need an ethics board in the first place.

There are two distinct questions here, what are the ethical concerns for the study and should there be an ethics board involved in finding an answer to the first question. Since we are talking about long term impact on peoples behavior, i think you can make a case that not considering the ethical aspects of that impact on unknowing test subjects is generally unethical?

We might be talking past each other, but that doesn't mean we don't disagree, because I don't agree with this:

> For the consideration what negative effects there are, there are ethic boards, as its generally considered unethical to make that consideration alone as a stakeholder.

A well trained ethics board might be a nice institutional tool to provide a documented ethical evaluation one can start with, but it of course does not in any way relieve anyone involved from their moral agency or the need to assess their actions "alone".

I'm also in strong opposition to the idea that it's unethical to make ethical considerations alone, as a stakeholder or not. Generally: delegating ethical responsibility of ones own action to a hierarchy is IMO very unethical, no matter how the industry handles it.

> Forgoing the conclusion of that consideration doesnt mean we didnt need an ethics board in the first place.

In my earlier comments I wasn't writing (or thinking) about whether we(?) need ethics boards or not and I do think that this is a different topic, but: We don't strictly need ethics boards, right? It's not something like human agency. They're a nice attempt to increase checks and balances in an institutionalized manner, not some kind of moral requirement.

> There are two distinct questions here, what are the ethical concerns for the study and should there be an ethics board involved in finding an answer to the first question.

There I agree, except that the ethics board can not answer the first question for the researchers. But that aside: Yes, the demand of seeking counsel can be morally justified.

> Since we are talking about long term impact on peoples behavior, i think you can make a case that not considering the ethical aspects of that impact on unknowing test subjects is generally unethical?

I think this is the essence of the question. I don't know of any ethical difference between long and short term impact, so I'd cut that out. I don't think that the test subjects knowledge would change anything in that regard, but tell me, if I'm wrong here. All shortened it would leave us with:

You should ethically consider your impact on test subjects.

Which I would agree on. Let's hope they've considered it in an appropriate manner.

I just thought that there is some material concern - like an actual moral wrongdoing - they've done, instead of just a concern that they might not have been concerned.

Restated in your terms, then:

I am unable to identify any statement in the preprint where they indicated that they had ethically considered their impact on test subjects. Did I miss a paragraph somewhere, or did they truly have nothing to say about such considerations?

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