Can GenAI help us in scaling ethical awareness and training?

In this research, we present a novel approach to ethics training for students and academic staff enhanced and assisted by generative AI tools. The study uses an existing ethics framework adopted by the University of Birmingham, and proposes a training course in which the learning objectives assist students and staff to tackle ethical dilemmas that they may come across in the workplace. The delegates to the training course use a mix of their own ideas and experience, then enhance it with Microsoft Copilot to stimulate discussion with other delegates, using this to provide real techniques they can take back into their professional lives.<br/><br/>Since the public launch of ChatGPT, and the subsequent product launches of its competitors by Google, Microsoft and others, there has been a high-visibility public, policy and academic discussion about the use of generative AI, its ethics, and ethical use. Some of the claimed benefits relate to increase in productivity and personalisation of learning &amp; training. Combining these discussions, we test whether GenAI can be an efficient tool in personalisation of ethical awareness training. For discussion and evaluation, we bring together academic experience and industry experts. Our data analysis is based on workshops with students of Business School and School of Engineering and a small range of staff members across the UoB (ethics approval ERN_1964-Feb2024). Our preliminary results reveal common patterns in ethical concerns raised by the participants; our second contribution relates to the experience of running workshop with in-build use of MS Copilot.