"I Learned I Ought, but Will I?"

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Abstract

As Artificial Intelligence systems increasingly impact society, their ethical devel- opment is viewed crucial (Hagendorff, 2020). Establishing ethical AI principles and educating future AI developers in ethical conduct are handled as a poten- tial approaches to ensuring the ethical development of AI systems (Prem, 2023; Fiesler et al., 2020). This quasi-experimental, mixed-methods study examined dif- ferences between AI students with and without AI ethics education in regarding attitudes toward AI, attitudes toward ethical AI principles, and ethical behavior in a real-world scenario referring to Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1991) and Attitude-Behavior Gaps (Mäses et al., 2019). Ninety-eight AI students with or without AI ethics education participated in a two-part study. They responded to questionnaires, and a subsample of 48 students participated in a mini focus group discussion. Data analysis included differential comparisons and qualitative content analysis of mini focus group transcripts. Results indicated that while both groups held positive attitudes toward AI, students with ethics education approached AI development differently, demonstrating greater knowledge and interest in AI ethics. Attitudinally, these students also viewed AI ethical principles as more important. Behaviorally, they considered a wider range of principles, while students without ethics education showed greater concern for Reliability, robustness, and security. Ex- ploratively, complex attitude-behavior gaps were observed, wherein students with ethics education showed significantly fewer gaps related to the principles of lawful- ness and compliance and fairness. The findings suggest that AI ethics education may be an important factor in promoting the practical incorporation of ethical principles in AI development, contributing to the growing knowledge on effective AI ethics education strategies.