The progress of the MoralPLai Project continues to accelerate, thanks also to the valuable contributions of our seven assisting students. Their research outcomes, creative insights and collaborative efforts are instrumental in advancing the project’s implementation.
To organize our work, we hold one virtual and one in-person meeting per month to discuss tasks, project progress and next steps. Virtual meetings provide an opportunity for students to reflect on their assignments, share lessons learned, address challenges and stay updated on each other’s work. On the other hand, in-person meetings allow for deeper engagement with research findings, fostering a more interactive exchange of insights and collaborative problem-solving as we address future milestones.
During our November in-person meeting, the students presented the key tasks they had focused on over the past few weeks to ensure alignment across the team. We began with updates on our literature review in moral psychology and the ethical implications of AI systems, particularly Large Language Models, to deepen our understanding of how these technologies shape decision-making processes. Building on this theoretical foundation, the team shared findings from industry and policy research to shed light on current regulations, ethical guidelines and views from experts on this topic. These insights are crucial as we prepare for upcoming expert interviews, which will provide a more nuanced understanding of these issues.
In addition, as part of our qualitative research, our team refined our methods for organizing focus group discussions with members of the public to capture their valuable perspectives. The expert interviews and focus group discussions will underscore the importance of qualitative research in capturing diverse viewpoints and enhancing our understanding of complex ethical challenges. Building on these findings, the team is also seeking opportunities were we could present at conferences and submit future findings to calls for papers.
During our November in-person meeting, we also touched upon communication related topics, students exchanged ideas on creating engaging content, boosting our social media presence and fostering strong networks to amplify the project’s visibility and impact.
The meeting concluded with an update on our quantitative research. Plans were outlined for an experimental study that will examine the influence of AI chatbots on ethical decision-making, ensuring our research addresses critical theoretical questions while also offering practical insights.
“With the work of the entire team, we have managed to gather a big corpus of key literature and relevant insights from many different sources (e.g., academic articles, regulatory documents, ethical guidelines, user discourses on Reddit…). These findings will help us immensely to prepare for our expert interviews and focus group discussions on the topic of large language model-based chatbots and moral guidance.” Dr. Franziska Poszler, MoralPLai Project Lead
Seeing our efforts come together has been incredibly rewarding and the progress we have made so far is both inspiring and motivating. We are eager to maintain this momentum as we move into the next stages and look forward to sharing more updates and insights soon.
Visit the MoralPLai Project webpage to learn more and stay tuned for more updates.
