Value Trade-offs Research Articles

Balancing Needs and Values: A Multi-Stakeholder Examination of Algorithmic News Recommenders in the Netherlands

ABSTRACT This paper aims to deepen understanding of the negotiation process underlying the values embedded in algorithmic news recommenders. The focus is on examining the perceptions and aspirations of different stakeholders and what values are ultimately incorporated in the design of a recommender system. Specifically, it investigates the development of value-driven recommendations at a leading Dutch online news platform, employing a combination of aspects of participatory action research and a multi-stakeholder framework. This is achieved through workshops and interviews with practitioners, critically examining the constraints and value tradeoffs that emerge among key internal stakeholders: journalists, editors, chief editors, and the technical team. The paper reveals how there is a tendency to prioritize technical aspects that align with immediate business goals. This does not stem from ill-intent or an unwillingness to explore other values but has practical reasons. Additionally, the study uncovers reservations and misconceptions about recommender systems by certain stakeholders, highlighting the need for improved understanding and dialogue among stakeholders.

Changes in perceived risk and ecosystem services after herbicide use on an aquatic invader

ABSTRACT Biodiversity conservation can entail socially controversial management interventions such as herbicide applications to eradicate aquatic invasive plants from highly productive native ecosystems. This study used a case example of the successful eradication of Alaska’s first aquatic invasive plant, Elodea spp. from two lakes surrounded by waterfront homes with the objective to measure perceived changes in the use of the lakes by local residents. A household survey was conducted with homeowners before and after the application of herbicides to measure public attitudes and human behavior changes related to the use of herbicide. We found fears and subjective expectations of survey respondents did not match the eventually collected objective scientific data on water quality. Also, we measured a significant negative change in lake-related activities over the duration of the management intervention that is smaller compared to the reduced activity level lake residents anticipated before the application of herbicide. Swimming and the consumption of fish caught in the lakes were the most negatively affected ecosystem services. The study showed the indirect and often hidden effects of management interventions on human risk perceptions that can translate to unintended human behavior changes and a reduction in related ecosystem service use. To account for complex social dimensions of controversial resource management interventions, resource managers require information on broad public value trade-offs and perceived risk beyond that which public meetings can provide. In this context, household surveys before and after resource management interventions can offer insights few other approaches can. The potential for more advanced outreach methods is discussed.

Distributive justice and value trade-offs in antibiotic use in aged care settings.

Residential aged care facilities (RACF) are sites of high antibiotic use in Australia. Misuse of antimicrobial drugs in RACF contributes to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) burdens that accrue to individuals and the wider public, now and in the future. Antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) practices in RACF, e.g. requiring conformation of infection, are designed to minimise inappropriate use of antibiotics. We conducted dialogue groups with 46 participants with a parent receiving aged care to better understand families' perspectives on antibiotics and care in RACF. Participants grappled with value trade offs in thinking about their own parents' care, juggling imagined population and future harms with known short term comfort of individuals and prioritising the latter. Distributive justice in AMR relies on collective moral responsibility and action for the benefit of future generations and unknown others. In RACF, AMS requires value trade-offs and compromise on antimicrobial use in an environment that is heavily reliant on antimicrobial drugs to perform caring functions. In the context of aged care, AMS is a technical solution to a deeply relational and socio-structural problem and there is a risk that carers (workers, families) are morally burdened by system failures that are not addressed in AMS solutions.

Autonomous military systems beyond human control: putting an empirical perspective on value trade-offs for autonomous systems design in the military

AbstractThe question of human control is a key concern in autonomous military systems debates. Our research qualitatively and quantitatively investigates values and concerns of the general public, as they relate to autonomous military systems, with particular attention to the value of human control. Using participatory value evaluation (PVE), we consulted 1980 Australians about which values matter in relation to two specific technologies: an autonomous minesweeping submarine and an autonomous drone that can drop bombs. Based on value sensitive design, participants were tasked to enhance the systems with design features that can realize values. A restriction (limited budget) in each design task forced participants to make trade-offs between design options and the values that these options realize. Our results suggest that the ‘general public’ has diverse and nuanced stances on the question of human control over autonomous military systems. A third of participants that is opposed to autonomous military systems when asked directly, selected different combinations of design features realizing varying degrees of human control. Several contextual factors, technology-specific concerns, and certain values seemed to explain these different choices. Our research shows that a focus on human control might overlook other important values that the general public is concerned about, such as system reliability, verifiability, and retrievability.

The trustification of AI. Disclosing the bridging pillars that tie trust and AI together

Trustworthy artificial intelligence (TAI) is trending high on the political agenda. However, what is actually implied when talking about TAI, and why it is so difficult to achieve, remains insufficiently understood by both academic discourse and current AI policy frameworks. This paper offers an analytical scheme with four different dimensions that constitute TAI: a) A user perspective of AI as a quasi-other; b) AI's embedding in a network of actors from programmers to platform gatekeepers; c) The regulatory role of governance in bridging trust insecurities and deciding on AI value trade-offs; and d) The role of narratives and rhetoric in mediating AI and its conflictual governance processes. It is through the analytical scheme that overlooked aspects and missed regulatory demands around TAI are revealed and can be tackled. Conceptually, this work is situated in disciplinary transgression, dictated by the complexity of the phenomenon of TAI. The paper borrows from multiple inspirations such as phenomenology to reveal AI as a quasi-other we (dis-)trust; Science & Technology Studies (STS) to deconstruct AI's social and rhetorical embedding; as well as political science for pinpointing hegemonial conflicts within regulatory bargaining.

Between Aims and Execution: Value Trade-Offs in the Practical Implementation of the European Arrest Warrant? – ERRATUM

Between Aims and Execution: Value Trade-Offs in the Practical Implementation of the European Arrest Warrant? – ERRATUM

Between Aims and Execution: Value Trade-Offs in the Practical Implementation of the European Arrest Warrant?

Abstract The European Union (EU) increasingly develops and implements policies infused with salient and sometimes conflicting values – for instance, in migration and criminal law cooperation. However, policy implementation studies have not frequently considered how such complex value trade-offs may affect practical implementation within Member States. This article therefore quantitatively and temporally examines the practical implementation of an EU flagship criminal law measure: the simplified extradition system known as the European Arrest Warrant (EAW). Using data on EAWs decided upon by the Dutch Amsterdam District Court, we test the impact of value trade-offs by examining whether (newly introduced) safeguards for the protection of requested persons adversely affect system efficiency (measured through case turnover times). The results suggest that the design of legal tests and adjustments made to the EAW system over time through the Court of Justice of the European Union affect the balance between fundamental rights protection and efficiency in the practical implementation of the EAW.

THE VALUE AFFORDANCES OF SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT FEATURES

Like, Comment, and Share are ubiquitous features and central elements of engagement on social media platforms. Yet the values promoted by such features remain an open question. We propose the concept of value affordances, defined as the set of ethical, aesthetic, and relational principles that emerge from the interaction between different stakeholders and technological infrastructures. We develop a novel method for studying value affordances through focus groups to explore the engagement features of Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Across platforms, our participants agreed that engagement features promote expression, care, and community, aligning with how companies promote their platforms. They also agreed that engagement features hinder privacy, mindfulness, peace, and safety, echoing public concerns about the harmful consequences of social media. Their accounts typically downplayed the role of technology, instead emphasizing user agency and responsibility. We discuss how users navigate tradeoffs in the value affordances of social media through creative strategies to negotiate, downplay, or even resolve these tensions. These include using features antagonistically, avoiding using specific features, or using features in more limited contexts like groups or direct messages. Users also negotiate value tradeoffs through how they assign responsibility for promoting or hindering particular values. While our participants consistently emphasized the agency of users, they differentiated responsibility into categories of "us" and "them," identifying with positive actions that promote values and blaming others for negative actions that hinder values.

A multiple criteria decision-making approach for water allocation of environmental flows considering the value trade-offs - A case study of Fen River in China

In the water-scarce basin, the allocation of environmental flows needs to achieve the equilibrium between ecological protection and economic development. One of the challenges is the lack of quantitative analysis of the value of water in the economy and ecosystem, which could not effectively support the decision-making. This paper proposed a new multi-criteria decision-making approach that considers the value trade-offs between the environmental flows and the economic water use of rivers. The value of environmental flows was assessed using the modified equivalent factor method combined with the hydraulic method, which considers the influences of the hydraulic characteristics of rivers on value assessment. The value of the economic water use was estimated using the modified Cobb-Douglas production function. The ideal point method was applied to obtain the optimal solution of the multi-criteria decision with the objective of maximum values of the economic water use and maximum values of environmental flows (or the value of multiple recommended environmental flows). This new method was applied to determine the optimal environmental flows in the Fen River, the second-largest tributary of the Yellow River of China. The results indicated that the reasonable environmental flows were 51.1 % or 40.4 % (considering the water shortage for development) of the natural runoff of the Fen River. This work could provide a valuable reference for determining the water allocation of environmental flows in the water shortage area of China.

Proportionality, Defensive Alliance Formation, and Mearsheimer on Ukraine

In this article, I consider the permissibility of forming defensive alliances, which is a neglected topic in the contemporary literature on the ethics of war and peace. Drawing on the jus ad bellum criterion of proportionality in just war theory, I argue that if permissible defensive force requires that its expected harms must be counterbalanced by its expected goods, then, permissible defensive alliance formation seems to also require that its expected harms must be counterbalanced by its expected goods, as the latter can result in much the same consequences as the former. Moreover, due to the incommensurability of values in play when making proportionality judgments, I argue for a value pluralist understanding of the criterion. On this view, defensive alliance formation is proportionate if the expected gains in certain values (goods) intuitively justify the expected losses in others (harms) when compared to the alternative expected value trade-offs of not allying. To explore the implications of my theoretical claims I consider them in relation to John Mearsheimer’s influential account of the causes of the Russo-Ukrainian War. On this account, the West’s strategy to assimilate Ukraine and Ukraine’s pursuit of NATO membership post-annexation of Crimea were disproportionate because the expected harms were unjustified when compared to the alternative expected goods and harms of forgoing Ukrainian membership of NATO. This does not imply that Russia’s aggression is just, but it does imply that the West and Ukraine are partially responsible for the war and that they acted impermissibly in attempting to expand/join NATO. Keywords: Proportionality, alliances, just war theory, Ukraine, Mearsheimer

Preferences for public engagement in decision-making regarding four COVID-19 non-pharmaceutical interventions in the Netherlands: A survey study.

Worldwide, non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) were implemented during the COVID-19 crisis, which heavily impacted the daily lives of citizens. This study considers public perspectives on whether and how public engagement (PE) can contribute to future decision-making about NPIs. An online survey was conducted among a representative sample of the public in the Netherlands from 27 October to 9 November 2021. Perceptions and preferences about PE in decision-making on NPIs to control COVID-19 were collected. Preferences regarding four NPIs were studied: Nightly curfew (NC); Digital Covid Certificate (DCC); Closure of elementary schools and daycares (CED); and physical distancing (1.5M). Engagement was surveyed based on the five participation modes of the IAP2 Spectrum of Public Participation, namely inform, consult, advice, collaborate and empower. Of the 4981 respondents, 25% expressed a desire to engage in decision-making, as they thought engagement could improve their understanding and the quality of NPIs, as well as increase their trust in the government. Especially for the NPIs DCC and NC, respondents found it valuable to engage and provide their perspective on trade-offs in values (e.g. opening up society versus division in society by vaccination status). Respondents agreed that the main responsibility in decision-making should stay with experts and policy-makers. 50% of respondents did not want to engage, as they felt no need to engage or considered themselves insufficiently knowledgeable. Inform was deemed the most preferred mode of engagement, and empower the least preferred mode of engagement. We reveal large variations in public preferences regarding engagement in NPI decision-making. With 25% of respondents expressing an explicit desire to engage, and considering the benefit of PE in other areas of (public) health, opportunities for PE in NPI decision-making might have been overlooked during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results provide guidance into when and how to execute PE in future outbreaks.

The value affordances of social media engagement features

Abstract Social media engagement is ubiquitous but contested, simultaneously framed as an everyday form of support and an urgent societal risk. To make sense of these competing claims, we introduce the concept of value affordances, defined as the set of ethical, aesthetic, and relational principles that emerge from the interaction between different stakeholders and technological infrastructures. We develop a novel method involving focus groups and value cards to study the value affordances of engagement features and explore how international students attribute values to the Like, Comment, and Share buttons of TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. Across platforms, participants agree that engagement features promote expression, care, and community and hinder privacy, mindfulness, peace, and safety. We discuss how our participants navigate value tradeoffs, emphasizing individual agency over structural factors when evaluating the design of platforms, using social media creatively, and assigning responsibility for harm to other users.

Mapping Community Perception, Synergy, and Trade-Off of Multiple Water Values in the Central Rift Valley Water System of Ethiopia

Individuals and communities use and value water in multiple and complex ways. In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the pluralistic nature of water values is poorly documented, and the existing and potential value trade-offs are unidentified. This study was undertaken in the Central Rift Valley (CRV) of Ethiopia to understand and map water values, priorities, risks, and trade-offs in a multi-stakeholder engagement process to provide the basis for more transparent and accountable decision-making. Integrated assessment methods, combining bio-physical and social methods, were applied. The results show 24 community-perceived and articulated water values that are diverse but interconnected, including values of water, landscapes, the river system, and downstream water bodies. Connections between people and landscape structures are articulated. In terms of priority water values, the overall results reflect the primary but basic need for water for food security and domestic uses. The results further illustrate the pluralistic nature of water values and the dichotomy of preferences among people of different backgrounds. The scenario-based Environmental Flow (EF) assessment exercise integrated into community value preferences and the event calendar that was used show that the river systems in CRV (Ketar, Kulumsa, and Gusha-Temela) have different ecological and socio-cultural flow requirements and that there are marked water value trade-offs. The conclusions of the study suggest that overlapping governance structures are affecting people’s perceptions of water and the way they articulate water values. Policy directions and decision-making need to recognize and acknowledge the multiple water values and competing uses of water in the CRV as a starting point to reconcile trade-offs that will then improve water security. Findings suggest that EF estimation and decision support tools can be customized to local ecological requirements through engaging local stakeholders in the assessment process.

Collaboration Adrift: Factors for Anchoring into Governance Systems, Distilled from a Study of Three Regulated Rivers

Collaboration has the potential to aid the balancing of values and goals that belong to different, sometimes competing, policy fields, such as energy, climate adaptation and nature conservation—a key component of sustainable governance. However, we need to know more of how collaboration can function as integrating (and integrated) components of governance systems. Three regulated Swedish rivers are used here as examples to explore factors that influence this function. The following factors are identified: transparency of value trade-offs, understanding of collaboration and governance, interplay between public sectors, integrating funding mechanisms, clarity of mandate, strategic use of networks and consistency of the governance system. As a consequence of the poor management of these factors in our case, water quality and ecology values are not integrated in strategic decision making, e.g., regarding hydropower, urban development or climate adaptation. Instead, they are considered add-ons, or “decorations”. The Swedish case illustrates the meaning of the factors and their great importance for achieving sustainable governance.

Closing the Gap Between Decision Analysis and Policy Analysts Before the Next Pandemic

Decision analysis (DA) is an explicitly prescriptive discipline that separates beliefs about uncertainties from value preferences in modeling to support decision making. Researchers have been advancing DA tools for the last 60 years to support decision makers handling complex decisions requiring subjective judgments. Recently, some DA researchers and practitioners wondered whether the difficult decisions made during the COVID-19 pandemic regarding testing, masking, closing and reopening businesses, allocating ventilators, and prioritizing vaccines would have been improved with more DA involvement. With its focus on quantifying uncertainties, value trade-offs, and risk attitudes, DA should have been a valuable tool for decision makers during the pandemic. To influence decisions, DA applications require interactions with policymakers and experts to construct formal representations of the decision frame, elicit uncertainties, and assess risk tolerances and trade-offs among competing objectives. Unfortunately, such involvement of decision analysts in the process of decision making and policy setting did not occur during much of the COVID-19 pandemic. This lack of participation may have been partly because many decision makers were unaware of when DA could be valuable in helping with the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, decision analysts were perhaps not sufficiently adept at inserting themselves into the policy process at critical junctures when their expertise could have been helpful. Funding: This research was partially supported by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security through the Center for Accelerating Operational Efficiency at Arizona State University.

Directional Pareto Front and Its Estimation to Encourage Multi-Objective Decision-Making

This work introduces the following concepts of directional and estimated directional Pareto front to encourage multi-objective decision making, especially when the Pareto front exists in limited regions in the objective space. The general output of multi-objective optimization is a set of non-dominated solutions to approximate the Pareto front. When the Pareto front exists in limited regions, few solutions are obtained and presented to the decision maker. The limited output representing the objective value trade-off is a barrier to multi-objective decision making. The directional Pareto front introduced in this study is a superset of the Pareto front and supplements the objective value trade-off between the Pareto fronts. The estimated directional Pareto front is a response surface that represents the directional Pareto front using a limited number of points, which are objective vectors of the obtained solutions. The experimental results show that the directional Pareto front and the estimated front provide an objective value trade-off even in areas where the Pareto front does not exist and enhances the explanation of the objective space of the target problem.

The Value of an Additional Day of Post-acute Care in a Skilled Nursing Facility

With ongoing efforts to improve the value of health care in the United States and reduce wasteful spending, we examine empirically the value trade-offs involved in an additional day in a skilled nursing facility (SNF) after hospital discharge. To control for potential endogeneity, we use the percentage of Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare Advantage in each county-year as an instrument for individuals’ SNF length of stay among Traditional Medicare beneficiaries, as local Medicare Advantage penetration puts downward pressure on SNF length of stay for all SNF patients but does not directly affect utilization management of those enrolled in Traditional Medicare. We also test for heterogeneity in treatment effect across patients by clinical complexity and two non-health-related factors, marital status and nursing home profit status. We find that one additional day in a SNF lowers short-term readmission rates, but this effect is small and heterogeneous across patient types. The most clinically complex patients (those with the longest predicted SNF stays) benefit the most from an additional SNF day, as do patients whose stays are shorter because of non-health-related factors. The cost savings from reduced readmission rates are small and do not offset the additional SNF costs.

Public perceptions uncovered: engaging in decision-making regarding non-pharmaceutical interventions

Abstract Background To control the COVID-19 pandemic, non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) were implemented worldwide, that heavily impacted the daily lives of citizens. Occasionally, the public expressed discontent about NPIs, as NPIs did not always corresponded with their preferences. The question is if and how public engagement (PE) could aid in development and implementation of NPIs, in order to improve legitimacy, quality and compliance. Methods An online survey was conducted from 27 October to 9 November 2021, with a representative sample of the public in the Netherlands on gender, age, education, place of residency and migration background. In total 4981 respondents participated. Perceptions and preferences about PE in decision-making on NPIs to control COVID-19 was collected. Four NPIs were used: Nightly curfew (NC); Digital Covid Certificate (DCC); Closure of schools and daycares (CSD); and 1.5meter social distance. Results Around 25% of respondents expressed a desire to engage in decision-making, as it would increase understanding and quality of NPIs, and their trust in the government. Especially for the NPIs DCC and NC, respondents found it valuable to engage, by providing their perspective on certain trade-offs in values in decision-making (e.g. opening up society vs division in society by vaccination status). The public could play a role by giving feedback on bottlenecks during decision-making, however overall responsibility should stay with experts and policy-makers. Desire for engagement was lowest for CSD. Around 50% of the respondents did not want to engage, as they felt they were not knowledgeable enough to do so and did not perceive a need to engage. The other 25% had a neutral disposition. Conclusions Engagement was not self-evident for most respondents, yet the ones willing to engage revealed important possibilities for future outbreaks. Next, a deliberative process for PE in decision-making could be executed, in order to implement our findings in practice. Key messages

Myths, damn myths, and voting system change

“Myths, Damn Myths, and Voting System Change” argues that the debate over voting system reform in Canada is all wrong—and that political scientists must bear most of the blame. Academics have framed the debate on the issue as a kind of popularity contest, one where the public is encouraged to take sides on the basis of the values they prefer their institutions embody. They claim that different voting systems reflect value tradeoffs on issues like simplicity, stability, local representation, and accountability. But these are myths. This essay examines each of these claims as well as arguments that insist referenda should be required to effect change, and finds that all lack compelling evidence. By contrast, “Myths, Damn Myths, and Voting System Change” argues that voting system reform is really an attempt to apply democratic values of inclusion, equality, and equity to Canadian electoral institutions, and offers a sounder, historically informed, evidence-based way to do it.

Commercial mHealth Apps and Unjust Value Trade-offs: A Public Health Perspective.

Mobile health (mHealth) apps for self-monitoring increasingly gain relevance for public health. As a mobile technology, they promote individual participation in health monitoring with the aim of disease prevention and the mitigation of health risks. In this paper, I argue that users of mHealth apps must engage in value trade-offs concerning their fundamental dimensions of well-being when using mobile health apps for the self-monitoring of health parameters. I particularly focus on trade-offs regarding the user's self-determination as well as their capacity to form personal attachments. Depending on the user's level of advantage or disadvantage, value trade-offs can pose a threat to the users' sufficient fulfillment of the dimensions of well-being. As such, value trade-offs can entrench existing structural injustices and prevent disadvantaged users to benefit from this technology. I argue that value trade-offs are, to some, a type of injustice that can drive disadvantaged users away from a sufficiency threshold of well-being, risk users to fall below the threshold, or have an accumulative effect on different dimensions of the user's well-being.