Inclusive Ethical Design for Recommender Systems

TL;DR

This paper proposes core principles for ethically designing recommender systems, emphasizing inclusivity and vulnerability considerations for adolescent users, and evaluates current approaches against these principles.

Contribution

It introduces specific ethical principles for recommender systems and assesses existing methods for their inclusivity of adolescent users' needs and vulnerabilities.

Findings

Current approaches often lack sufficient inclusivity for adolescents.

Many systems do not adequately address adolescent vulnerabilities.

The paper highlights gaps in ethical considerations for young users.

Abstract

Recommender systems are becoming increasingly central as mediators of information with the potential to profoundly influence societal opinion. While approaches are being developed to ensure these systems are designed in a responsible way, adolescents in particular, represent a potentially vulnerable user group requiring explicit consideration. This is especially important given the nature of their access and use of recommender systems but also their role as providers of content. This paper proposes core principles for the ethical design of recommender systems and evaluates whether current approaches to ensuring adherence to these principles are sufficiently inclusive of the particular needs and potential vulnerabilities of adolescent users.