3 ms·

There's lots of systemically horrible things that can happen if you're not careful about what you allow. If you're interested why these ethical principles exist

There's lots of systemically horrible things that can happen if you're not careful about what you allow. If you're interested why these ethical principles exist in the United States, I suggest you at least skim the Belmont Report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belmont_Report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belmont_Report

darawk 5y ago
> There's lots of systemically horrible things that can happen if you're not careful about what you allow. Of course there are. But what specifically are the harms that are going to be caused by either this research or a landing page A/B test without a click through pop up? The existence of theoretical harms for broad categories of potential research does not have a whole lot of bearing on these specific lines of research. > If you're interested why these ethical principles exist in the United States, I suggest you at least skim the Belmont Report I read it. It was interesting, but I don't think it's particularly relevant here. The only prong of its test that would be relevant to this experiment is "respect for persons". The idea that somehow not revealing the bug or the experiment was intrinsically harmful as a violation of a person's moral autonomy. I don't buy that line of reasoning, and I can't really think of any valid consequentialist justification for it, and the report itself does not attempt to justify it either, as far as I can tell.
- ryandrake 5y ago
  If I sit across the street from your house in a van and observe your life, noting down the times you come and go, and logging what I can see through your window, and then using that data to market things to you, would you agree that you'd rather be able to provide and withdraw consent for this activity? No harm done to you.
  - darawk 5y ago
    I think it's reasonable to consider invasion of privacy a harm on its own. There was no invasion of privacy in this example.

darawk 5y ago

> There's lots of systemically horrible things that can happen if you're not careful about what you allow. Of course there are. But what specifically are the harms that are going to be caused by either this research or a landing page A/B test without a click through pop up? The existence of theoretical harms for broad categories of potential research does not have a whole lot of bearing on these specific lines of research. > If you're interested why these ethical principles exist in the United States, I suggest you at least skim the Belmont Report I read it. It was interesting, but I don't think it's particularly relevant here. The only prong of its test that would be relevant to this experiment is "respect for persons". The idea that somehow not revealing the bug or the experiment was intrinsically harmful as a violation of a person's moral autonomy. I don't buy that line of reasoning, and I can't really think of any valid consequentialist justification for it, and the report itself does not attempt to justify it either, as far as I can tell.

ryandrake 5y ago
If I sit across the street from your house in a van and observe your life, noting down the times you come and go, and logging what I can see through your window, and then using that data to market things to you, would you agree that you'd rather be able to provide and withdraw consent for this activity? No harm done to you.
- darawk 5y ago
  I think it's reasonable to consider invasion of privacy a harm on its own. There was no invasion of privacy in this example.