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  • Rob Ricciricci
    Jul 22, 2026, 4:57 AM

    Like, I had to go through more IRB approval than this when we wanted to *interview 10 people about their jobs*.

    I'm not complaining! It was good! We approached the interviews more thoughtfully than we otherwise would have, were more careful about the kinds of things we needed to avoid exposing, and had to consider what "harm" could mean in this context!

    But IRBs *know* about talking to people! They *know* about giving people experimental drugs or surgeries.

    But apparently they don't know about perturbing the daily lives of millions of people.

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Replies

  • ansuzansuz@gts.cryptography.dog
    Jul 22, 2026, 5:25 AM

    @ricci I imagine their backroom conversation went something like

    ...but if we had to get participant consent we wouldn't be able to do a study like this...

    🙄​

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  • Davidshieldsy05@aus.social
    Jul 22, 2026, 10:51 AM

    @ricci yeah it’s hard, and I think this is an interesting edge case.

    One of my perspectives is that this is within the bounds of what the corporation who runs the software is “free” to do with their own software.

    I.e. the algorithms that program the route are (theoretically) a black box, and the company is free to change those algorithms as much as they want without ethics approval. By using the app you are agreeing to let them present you with a route.

    As the driver, you are also (for the most part) free to ignore or modify the presented route.

    But at the end of the day, it might come down to the specific wording of the regulation.

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  • Geoffrey Adamsbiogeo@mefi.social
    Jul 22, 2026, 12:06 PM

    @stefan_hessbrueggen @shieldsy05 @ricci Speaking as someone who does human subjects research in an academic setting, it is good and appropriate that we are held to a high ethical standard. Dealing with the bureaucracy around IRBs is often frustrating and slows things down, but that is an appropriate price to pay for the protection of research participants and giving society greater confidence that research undertaken for the benefit of all is being done ethically.

    What really grinds my gears is knowing that in many cases, a researcher working for a for-profit company can do the exact same things with zero oversight, and sometimes things that no IRB would approve, because many of the laws and regulations protecting human subjects no longer apply when the research is done for a "business purpose". We make it cheaper and easier to exploit people for profit than to learn from them for science.

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  • Christine Johnsonchristinkallama@hcommons.social
    Jul 22, 2026, 3:57 PM

    @shieldsy05 @ricci Yes, but in this case drivers weren’t told that the route they were being offered was under different, non-standard criteria. Using the app may constitute consent, but in this scenario not informed consent. As you said, an interesting edge case.

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  • Colin Gordoncsgordon
    Jul 22, 2026, 12:26 PM

    @ricci I think it's partly the scale that they're not equipped for, but really the systems thinking about downstream effects of that scale. When I did my last IRB training I was struck by the fact that the system assumes either individual interactions with researchers xor Internet surveys--- that any serious impact requires direct interaction or publication of private information.

    No part of the system --- requirements or training for IRB members --- is tuned to consider impacts across millions of people (though this is the kind of obvious thing I'd expect submitters to identify clearly). This, that Minnesota kernel bug incident... I mean it's entirely possibly to fuck up traffic for millions bad enough that an ambulance doesn't get there in time, or accidents are made significantly more likely.

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