Professor Burkhard Schafer is collaborating on a research project investigating the ethical risks of AI in research

Edinburgh Law School’s Professor Burkhard Schafer is co-investigating a 10-month project led by the University of Strathclyde that aims to help researchers and their institutions make informed decisions on how they use Generative AI. 

The project has received £100,000 in funding from REPHRAIN (the National Research Centre on Privacy, Harm Reduction and Adversarial Influence Online). It intends to guide research institutions, University Research Ethics Committees, funders like REPHRAIN, regulatory authorities, data custodians, professional organisations, publishers, and advocacy groups with early research interactions that involve Generative AI. 

Professor Schafer said: “Generative AI leads us into unchartered legal waters, with question marks over the way in which defamation and data protection law should be applied to its ‘statements’. When used in a research environment questions of law, research ethics, and rules of professional conduct interact in complex ways. I’m looking forward to work with our colleagues at Strathclyde to draw a map of these uncharted waters, to see where we should place the ‘there be dragons’ warnings. 

Read the full article on this project at the University of Strathclyde’s website

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