ETHICS-2025 Session C4 - Workshop: Technology Training to Improve Justice for Underrepresented Populations: ETHICS-2025 Special Session, Saturday, June 7 2025, 2:45 - 4:15 PM CDT

Technology ethics training is growing in importance to ensure justice for underrepresented and indigenous populations. Currently, there isn't any training on how to do this, which has become highly problematic with the increased use of technology. Larger companies are implementing AI into their existing software. Indigenous communities are sometimes unaware that the decision-making process is changing and that different data types are now involved in making those decisions. Decisions turn into “The computer told me so.” Additionally, new AI companies are starting systems and taking data or sometimes using trash data to guide decision-making and outcomes with little capacity to audit algorithms or even understand how those decisions are being made or guided by that trash data. Experts in human rights advocacy law and ethical technology adoption in Indigenous communities introduce public interest technology to explain technology impacts to underrepresented populations. Presently, underrepresented communities must deal with AI systems being imposed on them. Still, many Indigenous sovereign communities also must navigate the process of procuring and implementing these systems themselves. Either way, everyone must develop policies around training staff, informing the public, and auditing the decisions. It is essential to incorporate technology ethics practices as a standard process in the design, development, and deployment of any technology.