2019

• Christoph Lutz, Maren Schöttler, Christian Pieter Hoffmann

  The Privacy Implications of Social Robots: Scoping Review and Expert Interviews - New Article in Mobile Media & Communication

  The article "The privacy implications of social robots: Scoping review and expert interviews" was recently published in Mobile Media & Communication. The paper by Christoph Lutz, Maren Schöttler (Free University of Berlin) and Christian Pieter Hoffmann (University of Leipzig) systematically assesses the privacy implications of social robots, based on a scoping review and expert interviews. In the scoping review, the authors analyze 33 relevant publications across fields. In the expert interviews, salient aspects from the literature review are discussed in more depth through the voices of four academic experts, one practitioner, and one policy expert. Together, the analyses show that social robots introduce new privay challenges due to their autonomy and mobility. The article is available here and is part of a Mobile Media & Communication special issue on the topic of "mobile media beyond the mobile phone".

• Heike Felzmann, Eduard Fosch Villaronga, Christoph Lutz, Aurelia Tamò-Larrieux

  Transparency You Can Trust: Transparency Requirements for Artificial Intelligence between Legal Norms and Contextual Concerns - New Article in Big Data & Society

  Christoph Lutz, together with co-authors Heike Felzmann (NUI Galway), Eduard Fosch Villaronga (University of Leiden) and Aurelia Tamo-Larrieux (University of Zurich), published a new article in the open access journal Big Data & Society. Their conceptual article "Transparency you can trust: Transparency requirements for artificial intelligence between legal norms and contextual concerns" investigates the phenomenon of transparency in artificial intelligence (AI) and automated decision-making from a legal, sociological and ethical perspective. The article is a continuation of earlier work on this issue and extends the analyses from robotics to AI more generally. The full article is freely available here. Since its publication at the end of June 2019, the paper has been downloaded over 1000 times and has been heavily tweeted, reaching up to 200000 followers. 

   

• Christoph Lutz

  Digital Inequalities in the Age of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data - New Article in Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies

  Christoph Lutz' article Digital Inequalities in the Age of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data has been published in the new journal Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies. In this comprehensive literature review, Christoph summarizes previous research on digital inequalities and then shows avenues how this literature might engage with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data and the gig economy. The article is a call for exploring technologies such as smart speakers, online labor platforms and social media through the sociological lens of inequalities, showing how different population groups adopt, use and benefit in different ways from such emerging technologies. The article can be found here and is freely accessible. 

• Heike Felzmann, Eduard Fosch-Villaronga, Christoph Lutz, Aurelia Tamo-Larrieux

  Robots and Transparency: The Multiple Dimensions of Transparency in the Context of Robot Technologies - New Article in IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine

  Christoph Lutz, together with co-authors Heike Felzmann (NUI Galway), Eduard Fosch-Villaronga (University of Leiden) and Aurelia Tamo-Larrieux (University of Zurich), managed to publish the article Robots and Transparency: The Multiple Dimensions of Transparency in the Context of Robot Technologies in the prestigious IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine (2018 Impact Factor of 4.250). In the article, the authors look at the transparency requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and problematize its application in the context of social and assistive robots. The article can be found here. 

• Gemma Newlands, Christoph Lutz, Christian Fieseler

  Trading on the Unknown: Scenarios for the Future Value of Data - New Article in Law & Ethics of Human Rights

  Gemma Newlands, Christoph Lutz and Christian Fieseler saw their new article Trading on the Unknown: Scenarios for the Future Value of Data published in the May issue of Law & Ethics of Human Rights. The journal is one of the key outlets in human rights law, ranking number 3 (out of 44) in the W&L Law Journal Ranking. The paper is part of the special issue "Sharing Economy Markets and Human Rights" and reflects on the ways in which sharing economy platforms, such as Airbnb and Uber, place bets on the future through excessive data collection. It proposes four scencarios of data's future value and discusses how realistic each scenario is.

• Gemma Newlands, Christoph Lutz, and Christian Fieseler

  The Conditioning Function of Rating Mechanisms for Consumers in the Sharing Economy - New Article in Internet Research

  The article The Conditioning Function of Rating Mechanisms for Consumers in the Sharing Economy by Gemma Newlands, Christoph Lutz and Christian Fieseler was published in the prestigious journal Internet Research (2018 Impact Factor of 4.109). The paper is a continuation of their 2018 HICSS paper Emotional Labor in the Sharing Economy and forms part of a special issue on the sharing economy. Gemma, Christoph and Christian show through a mixed-methods design how sharing economy consumers (e.g., Airbnb guests, Uber passengers) perform emotional labor, for example by hiding negative feelings. Such emotional labor is perceived as burdensome but necessary due to the bilateral rating mechanisms that major sharing platforms have in place. 

• Alexander Buhmann, Johannes Passmann, and Christian Fieseler

  New article in the Journal of Business Ethics: Managing Algorithmic Accountability: Balancing Reputational Concerns, Engagement Strategies, and the Potential of Rational Discourse

  In this article, we develop a framework for managing algorithmic accountability that highlights three interrelated dimensions: reputational concerns, engagement strategies, and discourse principles. The framework clarifies (a) that accountability processes for algorithms are driven by reputational concerns about the epistemic setup, opacity, and outcomes of algorithms; (b) that the way in which organizations practically engage with emergent expectations about algorithms may be manipulative, adaptive, or moral; and (c) that when accountability relation-ships are heavily burdened by the opacity and fluidity of complex algorithmic systems, the emphasis of engagement should shift to a rational communication process through which a continuous and tentative assessment of the development, workings, and consequences of algorithms can be achieved over time. The article is now out in the Journal of Business Ethics and is available here:

  https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10551-019-04226-4

• Eliane Bucher, Christian Fieseler, and Christoph Lutz

  Mattering in digital labor

  Our newest piece on Mattering in Digital Labor was published this week in the Journal of Managerial Psychology. In this publication, Eliane, Christian and Christoph develop a measure of mattering in crowdworking with four dimensions: reliance, social recognition, importance and interaction. They show that reliance is the most pronounced dimension, followed by interaction, importance and social recognition. The findings indicate that individuals who feel that they themselves and their work “count” and “make a difference” will be more engaged in their digital labor. By clarifying the dimensionality of mattering in crowdwork and studying its differentiated effect on WE, the paper makes a contribution to research on crowdwork and the future of work. Beyond the theoretical contributions, the finding that perceived importance fosters WE has important implications for task and platform design.