{"id":1061,"date":"2020-04-15T10:40:27","date_gmt":"2020-04-15T14:40:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/?p=1061"},"modified":"2020-04-15T10:40:27","modified_gmt":"2020-04-15T14:40:27","slug":"04-15-2020-palakh-mignonne-jude-whats-at-stake-characterizing-risk-perceptions-of-emerging-technologies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/2020\/04\/15\/04-15-2020-palakh-mignonne-jude-whats-at-stake-characterizing-risk-perceptions-of-emerging-technologies\/","title":{"rendered":"04\/15\/2020 – Palakh Mignonne Jude – What\u2019s at Stake: Characterizing Risk Perceptions of Emerging Technologies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SUMMARY<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The authors of this paper adapt a survey instrument from existing risk perception literature to analyze the perception of risk surrounding newer emerging data-driven technologies. The authors surveyed 175 participants (26 experts and 149 non-experts). They categorize an \u2018expert\u2019 to be anyone working in a technical role or earning a degree in a computing field. Inspired by the original 1980\u2019s paper \u2018Facts and Fears: Understanding Perceived Risk\u2019, the authors consider 18 risks (15 new risks and 3 from the original paper). These 15 new risks include \u2018biased algorithms for filtering job candidates\u2019, \u2018filter bubbles\u2019, and \u2018job loss from automation\u2019. The authors also consider 6 psychological factors while conducting this study. The non-experts (as well as a few who were later on considered to be \u2018experts\u2019) were recruited using MTurk. The authors borrowed quantitative measures that were used in the original paper and added two new open-response questions \u2013 describing the worst-case scenario for the top three risks (as indicated by the participant) and adding new serious risks to society (if any). The authors also propose a risk-sensitive design based on the results of their survey. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

REFLECTION<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I found this study to be very\ninteresting and liked that the authors adapted the survey from existing risk\nperception literature. The motivation the paper reminded me about a New York\nTimes article titled \u2018Twelve Million Phones, One Dataset, Zero Privacy\u2019 and the\nlong-term implications of such data collection and its impact on user privacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 I found it interesting to learn that the\nsurvey results indicated that both experts and non-experts rated nearly all\nrisks related to emerging technologies as characteristically involuntary. It\nwas also interesting to learn that despite consent processes built into\nsoftware and web services; the corresponding risks were not perceived to voluntary.\n I thought that it was good that the\nauthors included the open-resource question on what the user\u2019s perceived as the\nworst case scenario for the top three riskiest technologies. I liked that they\nprovided some amount of explanation for their survey results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The authors mention that technologists\nshould attempt to allow more discussion around data practices and be willing to\nhold-off rolling out new features that raise more concerns than excitement.\nHowever, this made me wonder if any of the technological companies would be\nwilling to perform such a task. It would probably cause external overhead and\nthe results may not be perceived by the company to be worth the amount of time\nand effort that such evaluations may entail. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

QUESTIONS<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
  1. In addition to the 15 new risks added by the authors for the survey, are there any more risks that should have been included? Are there any that needed to be removed or modified from the list? Are there any new psychological factors that should have been added?<\/li>
  2. As indicated by the authors, there are gaps in the understanding of the general public. The authors suggest that educating the public would enable this gap to be reduced more easily as compared to making the technology less risky. What is the best way to educate the public in such scenarios? What design principles should be kept in mind for the same?<\/li>
  3. Have any follow-up studies been conducted to identify \u2018where\u2019 the acceptable marginal perceived risk line should be drawn on the \u2018Risk Perception Curve\u2019 introduced in the paper? \u00a0<\/li><\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    SUMMARY The authors of this paper adapt a survey instrument from existing risk perception literature to analyze the perception of risk surrounding newer emerging data-driven technologies. The authors surveyed 175 participants (26 experts and 149 non-experts). They categorize an \u2018expert\u2019 to be anyone working in a technical role or earning a degree in a computing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":288,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[98,101],"class_list":["post-1061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-class13","tag-riskperceptions"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/288"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1061"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1062,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061\/revisions\/1062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}