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The ethics of computer science: this researcher has a controversial proposal

Nature talks to Brent Hecht, who says peer reviewers must ensure that researchers consider negative societal consequences of their work.
  1. Elizabeth Gibney
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In the midst of growing public concern over artificial intelligence (AI), privacy and the use of data, Brent Hecht has a controversial proposal: the computer-science community should change its peer-review process to ensure that researchers disclose any possible negative societal consequences of their work in papers, or risk rejection.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-05791-w

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Updates & Corrections

  • Clarification 31 July 2018: The original version of this article said that the Association for Computing Machinery is the world’s largest scientific-computing society. In fact, it is the world’s largest computing society. The answer to the fourth question has also been clarified to make clear that it is reviewers, not authors, who would need to cite rigorous reasons for their concerns about a piece of research.

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