Logo
ScienceStack
Table of Contents
Fetching ...
Sign In

The overlooked need for Ethics in Complexity Science: Why it matters

Olumide Adisa, Enio Alterman Blay, Yasaman Asgari, Gabriele Di Bona, Samantha Dies, Ana Maria Jaramillo, Paulo H. Resende, Ana Maria de Sousa Leitao

TL;DR

The critical absence of formal guidelines, dedicated ethical committees, and widespread discussions on ethics within the complexity science community is highlighted, and a roadmap to enhance ethical awareness and action is proposed to enhance ethical awareness and action.

Abstract

Complexity science, despite its broad scope and potential impact, has not kept pace with fields like artificial intelligence, biotechnology and social sciences in addressing ethical concerns. The field lacks a comprehensive ethical framework, leaving us, as a community, vulnerable to ethical challenges and dilemmas. Other areas have gone through similar experiences and created, with discussions and working groups, their guides, policies and recommendations. Therefore, here we highlight the critical absence of formal guidelines, dedicated ethical committees, and widespread discussions on ethics within the complexity science community. Drawing on insights from the disciplines mentioned earlier, we propose a roadmap to enhance ethical awareness and action. Our recommendations include (i) initiating supportive mechanisms to develop ethical guidelines specific to complex systems research, (ii) creating open-access resources, and (iii) fostering inclusive dialogues to ensure that complexity science can responsibly tackle societal challenges and achieve a more inclusive environment. By initiating this dialogue, we aim to encourage a necessary shift in how ethics is integrated into complexity research, positioning the field to address contemporary challenges more effectively.

The overlooked need for Ethics in Complexity Science: Why it matters

TL;DR

The critical absence of formal guidelines, dedicated ethical committees, and widespread discussions on ethics within the complexity science community is highlighted, and a roadmap to enhance ethical awareness and action is proposed to enhance ethical awareness and action.

Abstract

Complexity science, despite its broad scope and potential impact, has not kept pace with fields like artificial intelligence, biotechnology and social sciences in addressing ethical concerns. The field lacks a comprehensive ethical framework, leaving us, as a community, vulnerable to ethical challenges and dilemmas. Other areas have gone through similar experiences and created, with discussions and working groups, their guides, policies and recommendations. Therefore, here we highlight the critical absence of formal guidelines, dedicated ethical committees, and widespread discussions on ethics within the complexity science community. Drawing on insights from the disciplines mentioned earlier, we propose a roadmap to enhance ethical awareness and action. Our recommendations include (i) initiating supportive mechanisms to develop ethical guidelines specific to complex systems research, (ii) creating open-access resources, and (iii) fostering inclusive dialogues to ensure that complexity science can responsibly tackle societal challenges and achieve a more inclusive environment. By initiating this dialogue, we aim to encourage a necessary shift in how ethics is integrated into complexity research, positioning the field to address contemporary challenges more effectively.
Paper Structure (9 sections, 2 figures, 1 table)

This paper contains 9 sections, 2 figures, 1 table.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Mapping ethical challenges in complexity science
  3. Limited research on ethics in complexity science
  4. Practical considerations for ethical actions in complexity science
  5. Conclusion
  6. Author contributions
  7. Acknowledgements
  8. Funding statement
  9. Annexus

Figures (2)

  • Figure 1: (A) Number of scientific papers in OpenAlex every year until 2023 with keywords referred to "Ethics" in yellow, to "Artificial Intelligence" (or AI) and "Ethics" in green, and to "Complex Systems" (or Complexity) and "Ethics" in purple. Complete set of keywords used for the literature search in \ref{['tab:keywords_table']}. (B) Disciplinary area distribution of the papers mentioning "Complex Systems" and "Ethics". Notice how varied and interdisciplinary the selected papers are, with the biggest areas being Sociology & Political Science and Artificial Intelligence.
  • Figure 2: (A) Co-authorship network of the papers with keywords related to "Complex Systems" and "Ethics". This undirected network is made of 3,184 authors and 5,110 edges between them. The size of the nodes represents the co-authorships of the corresponding author. Notice how disconnected the network is, counting the 1,213 connected components, with the largest connected component (LCC) having just 55 nodes. (B) Citation network of the papers mentioning "Complex Systems" and "Ethics", including their references and citations. This directed network comprises 9,048 papers and 19,683 edges between them. The size of a node is proportional to the in-degree of the related paper, i.e., the number of papers citing the paper. Notice how the selected papers share similar citations, resulting in only 27 weakly connected components. The color of the nodes refers to the type of paper as written in the legend, and there are no overlapping categories. Then, if a paper that is seed paper is the reference of another paper, this stays as seed paper.