At the Allen School, we are deeply committed to conducting research that leads to a strong positive impact on our society. Among many efforts, we are proud to introduce the PEACE Project (Proactively Exploring and Addressing Consequences and Ethics). This initiative seeks to support researchers to routinely and proactively address undesirable consequences of their research innovations.

The PEACE project receives support from a five-year institutional transformation grant through the National Science Foundation’s Ethical and Responsible Research (ER2) program.

Goal:

Researchers will be supported proactively to identify and address potential undesirable consequences of their research projects. Doing so can help us invest in further research and preventative mechanisms, from issuing disclaimers and regulations to reformulating research questions and directions. Our goal is not to inhibit emerging and risky research, but to put it in a safer context. Please read this white paper or this news coverage for more about our vision behind this project.

Approach:

Our approach includes support for learning about undesirable consequences, anticipating them for one’s own projects, and seeking advice.

  1. Learn. We will develop case studies where research innovations in different subareas of computer science have previously resulted in undesirable consequences. We will build course modules surrounding these cases and integrate these into introductory classes across many computer science areas.
  2. Anticipate. We will provide access and develop tools for anticipating undesirable consequences. In our prior work, we have adopted the Tarot Cards of Tech, Envisioning Cards in classrooms to brainstorm social impacts. Building on the ethics-focused tools, we will further scaffold their use in practice so that the process requires minimal time and energy.
  3. Seek Advice. We have created an ethics board to provide ethics consultation services. The ethics board includes ethics experts from diverse and relevant fields at the University of Washington. See the list of experts below:
  • Timothy Brown, UW School of Medicine, Department of Bioethics and Humanities
  • Ryan Calo, UW Law School
  • Priti Ramamurthy, UW Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies
  • Daniela Roesner, Human-Centered Design & Engineering
  • Adam Romero, UW Bothell School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences

Get in Touch:

For seeking advice from the ethics board, any other inquiries, or concerns related to the PEACE project, please reach out to Katharina Reinecke (reinecke@cs.washington.edu) or Rock Yuren Pang (ypang2@cs.washington.edu).