Ethics, Values and the Leader's Judgement

All courses / AI Leader / Module 5 / Chapter 25

Learning objectives

After the lesson the participant can:

Identify which of fairness, dignity, honesty and care a given leadership decision puts at stake.
Apply the value question to a decision class and say when it lowers the ceiling.
Distinguish delegated from assisted ethical judgement and state the common ground of the debate.
Draft a values-to-decision-rule mapping with a test that someone other than the decider can run.

Key concepts

The value question: The book's own addition to the ladder: which value does the decision put at stake, and can the test for that value be run outside the system? Where the answer is dignity or care and no test exists, the ceiling is lowered to advice or drafting of neutral text.
A wrong done by an accurate decision: Reversibility, reach and evidence measure the risk of error. The value question measures a different risk: a recommendation can be lawful, accurate and wrong, because of how a person is treated in the decision.
Moral deskilling: Vallor's conceptual argument that technologies can deskill their users morally, as moral skill develops by practice on cases. If the framing, the considerations and the draft reasons are supplied, the practice is reduced. The paper names a mechanism and does not measure it.
Form a view first: In a decision where a value dominates, the leader writes down a provisional position and the reasons before consulting an assistant, so the record shows what the assistant changed. The assistant is then asked for the case against, not for the verdict.
Values-to-decision-rule mapping: An artefact in version control beside the delegation profile that translates a named value into rules for one decision class, each with a test run by someone other than the decider, a record and a stop condition. Until the first sample has run, the rules are commitments, not results.

Interactive exercises

Do them here and get feedback at once. Choose a card and then where it belongs, or drag it.

Interactive exercise 1 · Match

What stays with the named leader

Match each decision class to what, according to the chapter's table on values in the ladder, stays with the named leader.

Interactive exercise 2 · Scenario

Reasons for a decision about a person

Apply the chapter's value question and its first design response.

Teaching plan

15 min	Lecture on what law already states as values and where it stops, and on the table of values that dominate each decision class.
15 min	The teacher presents moral deskilling, the experiments on advice from language models, and the six design responses, starting with forming a view first.
20 min	Staged debate in four steps on whether ethical judgement can be delegated or assisted; the class writes the points of common ground and reads the verdict with its labels.
30 min	Exercise: turn one value into a decision rule and a test.
10 min	Quiz and the fourth question each participant takes away: did I form a view before I was advised?

Discussion

The Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI say tensions between principles have no fixed solution and call for accountable deliberation. Where in your organisation would such deliberation take place, and who would chair it?
Both sides of the debate accept that disclosing that advice came from a model is not a defence, because disclosure did not remove the influence. What follows for how a leader should use an assistant on a decision about a person?
Nordvik's rule A1 goes further than the law requires and is recorded as a choice. When is it right for a leader to hold a stricter line than the law, and what evidence should end it?

Written exercise

Exercise · 30 minutes

Turn a value into a decision rule

Choose one decision class in your organisation where a value was recently contested, or use Hansa Mutual's case in which a sales-performance score was the main argument in a pay conversation. Name the value at stake. Write two rules that make it binding for the class, for example that reasons are written before any assistant is consulted, or that a score is never the stated ground for a decision about a named person. For each rule write a test that someone other than the decider can run on a sample, the record that is kept, and the stop condition if the test fails. Name the owner, the reviewer, the review forum and the employee side, and mark which applicable law is the floor.

Deliverable: A one-page values-to-decision-rule mapping with two rules, a test, a record and a stop condition for each, and named owner and reviewer.

Your work

Self-test

Choose an answer to see whether it is right, or open the answer below each question.

When does the value question lower the ceiling of a decision class, according to the chapter?
Show the answer
C. When dignity or care is at stake and no test for it can run outside the system
The other questions of the ladder measure the risk of error. The value question measures the risk of a wrong done by an accurate decision, and where dignity or care is at stake without a test the class is held at advice or neutral drafting.
What do the two sides of the debate on ethical judgement both accept?
Show the answer
A. That assistance is allowed and delegation of the judgement is not
The concerned side accepts that an assistant may raise considerations; the calm side accepts that the Level 4 prohibitions bind. Both prefer an assistant that challenges a view already formed over one that supplies the view.
How does the verdict label the idea of AI as a reliable moral adviser?
Show the answer
D. Speculation, while the frameworks and the experiments are observable
The frameworks and the experiments are observable, ethical review in existing forums is expected, and AI as a reliable moral adviser is speculation. No study cited measures a leader's moral skill over time.