Projects
The Ethical Tech Initiatives at The George Washington University (1) advance values of privacy, content integrity, fairness, due process, and transparency within widely-deployed technologies and (2) develop technological solutions to provide access to justice to marginalized communities, with a special emphasis on incarcerated persons.
ABOUT OUR WORK
- Reproductive Data Privacy Initiative: As part of EthicalTech@GW’s commitment to advancing privacy and content integrity within widely-deployed technologies, our Reproductive Data Privacy Initiative analyzes the ways in which individuals’ reproductive data privacy is at risk post-Dobbs, tracks content integrity in abortion-related online information, and convenes experts to develop solutions to protect reproductive data privacy and content integrity.
- Deepfakes and Disinformation Initiative: Our Deepfakes and Disinformation Initiative seeks to raise awareness about the misuse of deepfake technology as a potent tool to spread disinformation.
- Access to Justice Initiative: A core mission of EthicalTech@GW is to examine how technological developments can address the ever-growing justice gap by delivering vital legal services to marginalized communities. Our Access to Justice Initiative has collaborated with experts and policymakers to harness the role technology plays in improving access to justice for these communities.
- Educational Privacy Initiative
- Carceral Surveillance Initiative
- Distinguished Visiting Technologists Program: Our distinguished visiting technologists help us advance our goals of protecting data privacy, analyzing content integrity, and achieving access to justice for marginalized communities through technology. Our technologists include:
- Miguel Willis, Innovator in Residence, Future of the Profession Initiative & Executive Director, Access to Justice Tech Fellows, a national nonprofit organization that develops fellowships for law students seeking to employ technology to create equitable legal access for marginalized populations.
- Brian Hill, CEO of Edovo, an organization at the forefront of ethical prisoner communication and educational technologies; and
- Toni Marsh, Associate Professor; Director of GW Paralegal Studies, Professor Marsh is the founding director of the George Washington University paralegal studies master’s degree and graduate certificate programs, an associate professor of Paralegal Studies, and the Faculty Director of the Global Leadership Development Program.
- Jason Tashea, Product Manager at Quest for Justice, an organization that creates access-to-justice platforms to enable self-represented individuals to navigate the civil justice system more effectively.
- Access to Justice Partnership: We are a Partner Law School with the Access to Justice Tech Fellows Program, a non-profit organization designed to equip the next generation of civil justice leaders to ensure equitable access to justice for all.
- Roundtables:
- Our first roundtable: “How Tech Can Improve Access to Justice” – gathered leading experts in the emerging field of justice tech to discuss how technologies can provide marginalized communities with greater access to the justice system, and how law students, professors, and lawyers can become meaningfully involved in such efforts.
- This roundtable was moderated by Principal Investigators Bob Brauneis and Dawn Nunziato and featured these speakers:
- Miguel Willis, Executive Director, Access to Justice Tech Fellows Program;
- Jason Tashea, Product Manager, Quest for Justice;
- Tanina Rostain, Professor of Law, Georgetown Law, and Co-Director, Justice Lab;
- Jared Fishman, Executive Director, Justice Innovation Lab;
- Don Braman, Associate Professor of Law, GW Law, and Senior Social Scientist, The Lab@DC.
- This roundtable was moderated by Principal Investigators Bob Brauneis and Dawn Nunziato and featured these speakers:
- Our first roundtable: “How Tech Can Improve Access to Justice” – gathered leading experts in the emerging field of justice tech to discuss how technologies can provide marginalized communities with greater access to the justice system, and how law students, professors, and lawyers can become meaningfully involved in such efforts.
- Access to Justice Roundtable on October 13th at 6pm, featuring:
- Eduardo Gonzalez – Projects Manager, Self-Represented Litigation Network
- Shirley Horng – Sr. Staff Attorney, Legal Aid Society of DC; Co-chair of the Public Interest and Courts Community of the D.C. Bar
- Toni Marsh – Distinguished Visiting Technologist, Ethical Tech Initiative of DC; Associate Professor; Director, GW Paralegal Studies
- Jessica Steinberg – Associate Professor of Clinical Law at GW Law
- Miguel Willis – Distinguished Visiting Technologist, Ethical Tech Initiative of DC; Innovator in Residence, Future of the Profession Initiative at Penn Law
- Social Media Counsel Guest Lecture: TikTok Privacy and Public Policy Counsel Dayo Simms and Carolyn Lowry joined us for a discussion of issues of privacy by design and due process in transparency reporting.
- Affiliation with Institute for Data, Democracy & Politics: Principal Investigators Bob Brauneis and Dawn Nunziato are affiliates of the GWU Institute for Data, Democracy & Politics (IDDP), a cross-disciplinary institute of experts that focuses on researching remedies for mis/disinformation and other malicious uses of digital platforms that harm our democracy and disadvantage marginalized members of society, and developing remedies to enhance content integrity and accuracy in such platforms.
- Partnership with GWU Institute for Data, Democracy & Politics Leaders: We are partner to the Institute’s Co-Director David Broniatowksi and Researcher Ethan Porter who are researching the efficacy of fact-checking measures on social media, to better understand the psychological roots of mis/disinformation’s appeal, and ultimately to promote truth, accuracy, content integrity, and an informed public. The study of misinformation involves investigating why misinformation is so appealing, and what can be done to cause people to reject it. Prior scholarship has shown that a message that is easier to comprehend and remember because it communicates a clear, bottom-line meaning may play a special role in determining how likely it is to be compelling and shared. We’re studying both how to measure bottom-line meaning, and the extent to which perceptions of bottom-line meaning help explain the sharing of misinformation. We are also studying what kinds of messages lead people to reject misinformation. While fact-checks are generally effective, they are resource-intensive to produce. We are testing whether other, less-resource-intensive messages can be similarly effective.
- Panel on AI Fairness & Transparency: Principal Investigator Bob Brauneis served as a panelist at the March 24 panel on AI Fairness & Transparency, in which he discussed his research on algorithmic transparency, equity and justice; and digital civil rights.
- Artificial Intelligence Litigation Database: We have designed a database, accessible here, to contain information about ongoing and completed litigation involving artificial intelligence, and entered information into that database regarding about 50 cases.
“EthicalTech@GW is an exemplar of how universities in general, and our GW Law school in particular, have a special role to play in considering challenging issues. Universities are well positioned to bring together the perspective of technologists with those who focus on law. The interdisciplinarity of this initiative goes beyond this, bringing together lines of academic inquiry that are often compartmentalized within law schools. As the word “ethical” suggests, the initiative is concerned with values of fairness, due process, and transparency, concerns that form the bedrock of the American legal tradition.”
Michael B. Abramowicz, Jeffrey and Martha Kohn Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs; Oppenheim Professor of Law at GW Law