Are you even real? rethinking research ethics in the age of AI

Description

Internet research has always taken place in the context of rapid cultural change and platform instability raising particular methodological challenges. However the pace and proliferation of AI is accelerating these challenges requiring rapid and deep reflection on the capabilities of researchers and ethics committees to understand and respond to such challenges. There is a real and growing concern that AI powered bots, synthetic participants, and the generative content that they ‘contribute’ to internet research activities threatens to shape and distort the value of that research.
In this paper we will present the authors’ experience of undertaking research targeted by AI bots and by a mixture of human and automated bad actors. We use this experience to discuss some of the potential implications for this proliferation of AI generated content and AI-powered bots in the context of internet research. We approach this topic with both the perspectives of researchers engaging in online research and the perspectives of research ethics committees (RECs) evaluating research ethics proposals in mind.

Period	29 Jan 2025
Event title	2025 Digital Research Conference: 1st Digital Research Conference at the University of Edinburgh
Event type	Conference
Location	Edinburgh, United KingdomShow on map
Degree of Recognition	Local