Concrete example: I am in the process of trying to hire people right now. I'm not sure what the exact best way to do that is, so I vary how I interview over time and see how well it seems to work. I record what happens in a spreadsheet, and then later on I look at the 'data' to make some judgments.
Am I experimenting on my interviewees? Am I potentially harming them?
Well certainly if I ask question A in one interview, and question A' in another, and question A' is harder and I don't pass that person, then one might be tempted to argue that maybe that person would've done better on question A; therefore, I've harmed someone by 'experimenting' and making it harder for them to get a job. Rejecting someone can certainly make them depressed.
In principle this is no different from A/B testing an interview process, using real live humans no less.
So do I personally have an ethical obligation to disclose to everyone I interview that I am conducting human experimentation on them? Or is the only difference in power and scale—I am just one person, but Facebook can A/B test on millions of people at once?
> In principle this is no different from A/B testing an interview process, using real live humans no less.
> So do I personally have an ethical obligation to disclose to everyone I interview that I am conducting human experimentation on them? Or is the only difference in power and scale—I am just one person, but Facebook can A/B test on millions of people at once?
Generally, when interviewing, we ask the same questions of each applicant. We adjust the questions from A to A' as positions are hired, and pools are assembled, but for a specific job, each candidate gets the same questions.
It would have to be different for open recruitment not tied to a specific job, but I haven't had to do that.
Four years ago, having talked to some of the same lawyers about the same topic, none of us had any thought that it was a grey area. An a priori interpretation of the law was pretty clear: a more liberal position was (and is) perfectly legal. But the most anxious minds tend to prevail in these matters.
That's a terrific idea.
Of course, which is why the conversation continues. If it was settled at the beginning without nuance, it would be defined in black and white.
I'm not sure how your reply relates, though, since I was merely imploring GP to demonstrate any awareness of the state of research rather than jumping in with a lazy question-comment.
Elsewhere this is expressed by the slogan, "I'm 12 years old and what is this?"
FB - A little negative = meh
FB - More negative = major downer
FB - Totally negative = woah, look at the sorry state they are in now.
Cake - A little laxative = mmm this cake is special somehow
Cake - More laxative = nice cake, special, where is the roll of extra TP?
Cake - Dump it in = people home for days, the shits.
In both cases, not telling them is the ethics problem.
Basically the public trust boils down to people expecting others not to harm them. Depression can become chronic. The shits could damage someone requiring medical help.
Both are clear risks people would very likely avoid, if they knew.
FB - We want to run a depression test. Plz volunteer your feed and see if you get depressed.
Cake - We have a laxative that tastes great, but you might get the shits, plz have some cake.
See the problem?
E.g.: "Starting next week, we'll try to affect your mood as part of an experiment". Or "the new version of our product purposefully tries to depress you a bit" followed by "we didn't like the results of it so we've changed it back".