The shallow of your smile: the ethics of expressive vocal deep-fakes

Rapid technological advances in artificial intelligence are creating opportunities for real-time algorithmic modulations of a person’s facial and vocal expressions, or ‘deep-fakes’. These developments raise unprecedented societal and ethical questions which, despite much recent public awareness, are still poorly understood from the point of view of moral psychology. We report here on an experimental ethics study conducted on a sample of N = 303 participants (predominantly young, western and educated), who evaluated the acceptability of vignettes describing potential applications of expressive voice transformation technology. We found that vocal deep-fakes were generally well accepted in the population, notably in a therapeutic context and for emotions judged otherwise difficult to control, and surprisingly, even if the user lies to their interlocutors about using them. Unlike other emerging technologies like autonomous vehicles, there was no evidence of social dilemma in which one would, for example, accept for others what they resent for themselves. The only real obstacle to the massive deployment of vocal deep-fakes appears to be situations where they are applied to a speaker without their knowing, but even the acceptability of such situations was modulated by individual differences in moral values and attitude towards science fiction. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Voice modulation: from origin and mechanism to social impact (Part II)’.

Considering Ethics in Agricultural Experimental Research with Special Mention to Agricultural Biotechnology Research

Ethics in experimental research equals scientific integrity, a notion principle particularly stressing honesty while implementing discipline concepts on what is excellent and terrible. Some moral responsibility is defined through specifically agreed standards in doing experimental research. Ethics of experimental research in agriculture involves all activities done before, during, and after the study, consisting of personal, research, and social ethics. Ethical code and policy include, but are not limited to, honesty, objectivity, integrity, carefulness, openness, intellectual right recognition, confidentiality, responsible publication, social responsibility, competency, legality, and protecting research object/subject (plant, animal, human) from possible unfair manipulation. One development triggering the controversy of agriculture’s experimental ethics is the progress of agricultural biotechnology which resulted in genetic engineering products. Rules, regulations, and laws concerning the use and development of genetic engineering in agriculture to avoid adverse effects of these products, such as rising environmental hazards, increasing human health degradation, and unfair economic competition, should be considered and implemented.

The shallow of your smile: The ethics of expressive vocal deepfakes

Rapid technological advances in artificial intelligence are creating opportunities for real-time algorithmic modulations of a person’s facial and vocal expressions, or “deep- fakes”. These developments raises unprecedented societal and ethical questions which, despite much recent public awareness, are still poorly understood from the point of view of moral psychology. We report here on an experimental ethics study conducted on a sample of N=303 participants (predominantly young, western and educated), who evaluated the acceptability of vignettes describing potential applications of expressive voice transformation technology. We found that vocal deep-fakes were generally well accepted in the population, notably in a therapeutic context and for emotions judged otherwise difficult to control, and surprisingly, even if the user lies to their interlocutors about using them. Unlike other emerging technologies like autonomous vehicles, there was no evidence of social dilemma in which one would e.g. accept for others what they resent for themselves. The only real obstacle to the massive deployment of vocal deep-fakes appears to be situations where they are applied to a speaker without their knowing, but even the acceptability of such situations was modulated by individual differences in moral values and attitude towards science-fiction.

A Dynamic Model for Simulating Elephant-Lifting by Using a Tilting Frame

A rigid multi-body dynamic model of an elephant was developed for motion analysis during tilt-lifting. The elephant lifting to standing position is required by veterinarians to perform surgery and bedsores treatment. The elephant mechanism dynamic model (EMDM) was developed by simplifying the skeleton to simple straight linkages connected by joints. The model consisted of 10 bones and 9 joints. A mechanical harness model (MHM) was developed. Two harnesses were attached to the tilt-frame mechanism model (FMM) and the EMDM; this assembly became the elephant dynamic during tilt-lifting model (EDTM). The developed EDTM permitted us to observe the displacement, velocity, and acceleration responses at any location on the elephant. The model allowed the virtual study of the motion, and avoided the real elephant testing; thus, the cost, time, and resources were reduced and no conflict with the animal experimental ethics. The simulation was found to be a valuable tool for engineers to design a suitable elephant bed. It permitted us to observe the operation, safety, and precaution of the equipment.

An Experimental Ethics Approach to Robot Ethics Education

We propose an experimental ethics-based curricular module for an undergraduate course on Robot Ethics. The proposed module aims to teach students how human subjects research methods can be used to investigate potential ethical concerns arising in human-robot interaction, by engaging those students in real experimental ethics research. In this paper we describe the proposed curricular module, describe our implementation of that module within a Robot Ethics course offered at a medium-sized engineering university, and statistically evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed curricular module in achieving desired learning objectives. While our results do not provide clear evidence of a quantifiable benefit to undergraduate achievement of the described learning objectives, we note that the module did provide additional learning opportunities for graduate students in the course, as they helped to supervise, analyze, and write up the results of this undergraduate-performed research experiment.

Extraction, purification and characterization of hyaluronic acid from Rooster comb

Hyaluronic acid, is extract by different procedures from various sources like pig, rabbit, oxes and human are available, but these processes have certain imitations like low yield, and also it requires the killing of these animals which is against the experimental ethics. In the present study, we have carried out the extraction of hyaluronic acid from cock’s comb which was further analyzed with qualitative test, viscosity, UV absorption, endotoxin detection assay. Also, the protein contamination of extracted hyaluronic acid was determined by using SDS-PAGE of hyaluronic acid was studied for checking the protein contaminants and it was noted that there were no bands observed in the well loaded with extracted hyaluronic acid sample indicating that the final extract of hyaluronic acid is not contaminated with the protein. The extraction and purification of hyaluronic acid by using the method reported here give pure hyaluronic acid. The viscosity of extracted hyaluronic acid was found to be 2.55 poise which is economical and can be used for industrial production of hyaluronic acid having clinical applications