ORCID Profile
0000-0002-0011-1363
Current Organisation
University of Sydney
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Publisher: JMIR Publications Inc.
Date: 28-02-2022
Abstract: rtificial intelligence (AI) for use in healthcare and social services is rapidly developing, but this has significant ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI). Theoretical and conceptual research in AI ethics is rapidly expanding empirical research is needed to understand the values and judgements of members of the public, who will be the ultimate recipients of AI-enabled services. o assess and compare Australians’ general and particular judgements regarding the use of AI, to compare Australians’ judgements about different healthcare and social service applications of AI, and to determine the attributes of health and social service AI systems that Australians consider most important. e conducted a survey of the Australian population using an innovative s ling and weighting methodology involving two s le components, one from an omnibus survey using a s le selected by scientific probability s ling methods, and one from a non-probability s led online panel. The online panel s le was calibrated to the omnibus survey s le using behavioural, lifestyle and socio-demographic variables. Univariate and bivariate analyses were performed. e included weighted responses from 1950 Australians in the online panel, along with a further 2498 from the omnibus survey for a subset of questions. Both weighted s les were socio-demographically well spread. An estimated 60% of Australians support the development of AI in general, but in specific healthcare scenarios this diminishes to between 27 and 43%, and for social service scenarios between 31 and 39%. While all ethical and social dimensions of AI presented were rated as important, accuracy was consistently the most important and reducing costs the least important speed was also consistently lower in importance. Four in five Australians valued continued human contact and discretion in service provision more than any speed, accuracy, or convenience that AI systems might provide. he ethical and social dimensions of AI systems matter to Australians. AI systems should augment rather than replace humans in the provision of both health and social services, and these AI systems should reflect human values. There must be meaningful and active participation of ethicists, social scientists and the public in AI development and implementation, particularly in sensitive and value-laden domains such as healthcare and social services.
Publisher: JMIR Publications Inc.
Date: 22-08-2022
DOI: 10.2196/37611
Abstract: Artificial intelligence (AI) for use in health care and social services is rapidly developing, but this has significant ethical, legal, and social implications. Theoretical and conceptual research in AI ethics needs to be complemented with empirical research to understand the values and judgments of members of the public, who will be the ultimate recipients of AI-enabled services. The aim of the Australian Values and Attitudes on AI (AVA-AI) study was to assess and compare Australians’ general and particular judgments regarding the use of AI, compare Australians’ judgments regarding different health care and social service applications of AI, and determine the attributes of health care and social service AI systems that Australians consider most important. We conducted a survey of the Australian population using an innovative s ling and weighting methodology involving 2 s le components: one from an omnibus survey using a s le selected using scientific probability s ling methods and one from a nonprobability-s led web-based panel. The web-based panel s le was calibrated to the omnibus survey s le using behavioral, lifestyle, and sociodemographic variables. Univariate and bivariate analyses were performed. We included weighted responses from 1950 Australians in the web-based panel along with a further 2498 responses from the omnibus survey for a subset of questions. Both weighted s les were sociodemographically well spread. An estimated 60% of Australians support the development of AI in general but, in specific health care scenarios, this diminishes to between 27% and 43% and, for social service scenarios, between 31% and 39%. Although all ethical and social dimensions of AI presented were rated as important, accuracy was consistently the most important and reducing costs the least important. Speed was also consistently lower in importance. In total, 4 in 5 Australians valued continued human contact and discretion in service provision more than any speed, accuracy, or convenience that AI systems might provide. The ethical and social dimensions of AI systems matter to Australians. Most think AI systems should augment rather than replace humans in the provision of both health care and social services. Although expressing broad support for AI, people made finely tuned judgments about the acceptability of particular AI applications with different potential benefits and downsides. Further qualitative research is needed to understand the reasons underpinning these judgments. The participation of ethicists, social scientists, and the public can help guide AI development and implementation, particularly in sensitive and value-laden domains such as health care and social services.
Publisher: Queensland University of Technology
Date: 03-2016
Abstract: Over the last three decades, welfare states across the West have embraced a host of new technologies and initiatives in the name of fighting welfare abuse and fraud (see Cook 1989, 2006 Wacquant 2001, 2009). Increasingly, these practices of ‘welfare policing’ are graduated according to risk particular welfare populations considered at greater risk of welfare fraud are subject to more intense scrutiny. Drawing on interview research with compliance staff from the Australian Department of Human Services, this paper critically explores how the rationality of risk figures in the process of welfare surveillance in Australia. It pays particular attention to the ways in which risk formulations are embedded in gender and class politics, and how this has led to the characterisation of single mothers and unemployed recipients as more ‘risky’ than the general welfare population, a point that is often overlooked in the literature. But, far from being immutable, this paper also considers how the politics of risk are open to reformulation with often unexpected results.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 11-2018
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 05-2019
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 23-04-2019
DOI: 10.1093/BJC/AZZ027
Abstract: The social security fraud prosecution rate has fallen by approximately 74.9 per cent in Australia since 2010. This is remarkable considering the national dialogue continues to propound a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to fraud in the welfare system. Drawing on interviews with compliance staff from the Australian Department of Human Services, documentary research and a Foucauldian governmentality analytic, this article charts and interrogates the declining welfare fraud prosecution rate in the context of neoliberal welfare reform. It argues that this decline is at least partially the result of the reformulation of the objects of prosecution strategies by staff responsible for their enactment. This finding highlights the importance of localized accounts of welfare administration to supplement and complicate macro analyses of the ‘criminalization of welfare’ in Western industrialized nations.
No related grants have been discovered for Scarlet Wilcock.