The Essential Role of Ethics in Fostering Robust Responses to Changes in the Technological Environment for Public-Stewardship Statistical Information

Oregon Convention Center 

Artificial intelligence and other computationally intensive tools are leading to extraordinary changes in environments for the production, confidentiality protection, dissemination, and use of public-stewardship statistical information. Truly groundbreaking and productive responses to these changes will require highly creative, thoughtful, and sustained collaboration across, and trust among, many stakeholder groups. This paper highlights ways in which successful collaborations will depend on serious, sustained and practical applications of ethical principles in technical, managerial and stakeholder-relationship settings that are complex, rapidly evolving, and often unpredictable. Four underlying principles receive primary emphasis: respect for – and obligations to - individuals, institutions, communities, and the environment; respect for facts; the importance of contextual factors; and realistic, actionable and timely communication. We illustrate these general concepts with three use cases: (1) confidentiality protection; (2) changes in production processes for current statistical information series; and (3) fundamental changes in the estimands for statistical information suites.