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Is using AI tools innovation or exploitation? 3 ways to think about the ethics
AI’s rapid evolution prompts ethical dilemmas across industries, raising questions about creators’ rights, societal impacts, and professional integrity, necessitating thoughtful reflection and balanced approaches.
Leo S. Lo, University of New Mexico
Artificial intelligence can be used in countless ways – and the ethical headaches it raises are countless, too.
Consider “adult content creators” – not necessarily the first field that comes to mind. In 2024, there was a surge in AI-generated influencers on Instagram: fake models with faces made by AI, attached to stolen photos and videos of real models’ bodies. Not only did the original content creators not consent to having their images used, but they were not compensated.
Across industries, workers encounter more immediate ethical questions about whether to use AI every day. In a trial by the U.K.-based law firm Ashurst, three AI systems dramatically sped up document review but missed subtle legal nuances that experienced lawyers would catch. Similarly, journalists must balance AI’s efficiency for summarizing background research with the rigor required by fact-checking standards.
These examples highlight the growing tension between innovation and ethics. What do AI users owe the creators whose work forms the backbone of those technologies? How do we navigate a world where AI challenges the meaning of creativity – and humans’ role in it?
As a dean overseeing university libraries, academic programs and the university press, I witness daily how students, staff and faculty grapple with generative AI. Looking at three different schools of ethics can help us go beyond gut reactions to address core questions about how to use AI tools with honesty and integrity.
Rights and duties
At its core, deontological ethics asks what fundamental duties people have toward one another – what’s right or wrong, regardless of consequences.
Applied to AI, this approach focuses on basic rights and obligations. Through this lens, we must examine not only what AI enables us to do, but what responsibilities we have toward other people in our professional communities.
For instance, AI systems often learn by analyzing vast collections of human-created work, which challenges traditional notions of creative rights. A photographer whose work was used to train an AI model might question whether their labor has been appropriated without fair compensation – whether their basic ownership of their own work has been violated.
On the other hand, deontological ethics also emphasizes people’s positive duties toward others – responsibilities that certain AI programs can assist in fulfilling. The nonprofit Tarjimly aims to use an AI-powered platform to connect refugees with volunteer translators. The organization’s AI tool also gives real-time translation, which the human volunteers can revise for accuracy.
This dual focus on respecting creators’ rights while fulfilling duties to other people illustrates how deontological ethics can guide ethical AI use.
AI’s implications
Another approach comes from consequentialism, a philosophy that evaluates actions by their outcomes. This perspective shifts focus from individuals’ rights and responsibilities to AI’s broader effects. Do the potential boons of generative AI justify the economic and cultural impact? Is AI advancing innovation at the expense of creative livelihoods?
This ethical tension of weighing benefits and harms drives current debates – and lawsuits. Organizations such as Getty Images have taken legal action to protect human contributors’ work from unauthorized AI training. Some platforms that use AI to create images, such as DeviantArt and Shutterstock, are offering artists options to opt out or receive compensation, a shift toward recognizing creative rights in the AI era.
The implications of adopting AI extend far beyond individual creators’ rights and could fundamentally reshape creative industries. Publishing, entertainment and design sectors face unprecedented automation, which could affect workers along the entire production pipeline, from conceptualization to distribution.
These disruptions have sparked significant resistance. In 2023, for example, labor unions for screenwriters and actors initiated strikes that brought Hollywood productions to a halt.
A consequentialist approach, however, compels us to look beyond immediate economic threats, or individuals’ rights and responsibilities, to examine AI’s broader societal impact. From this wider perspective, consequentialism suggests that concerns about social harms must be balanced with potential societal benefits.
Sophisticated AI tools are already transforming fields such as scientific research, accelerating drug discovery and climate change solutions. In education, AI supports personalized learning for struggling students. Small businesses and entrepreneurs in developing regions can now compete globally by accessing professional-level capabilities once reserved for larger enterprises.
Even artists need to weigh the pros and cons of AI’s impact: It’s not just negative. AI has given rise to new ways to express creativity, such as AI-generated music and visual art. These technologies enable complex compositions and visuals that might be challenging to produce by hand – making it an especially valuable collaborator for artists with disabilities.
Character for the AI era
Virtue ethics, the third approach, asks how using AI shapes who users become as professionals and people. Unlike approaches that focus on rules or consequences, this framework centers on character and judgment.
Recent cases illustrate what’s at stake. A lawyer’s reliance on AI-generated legal citations led to court sanctions, highlighting how automation can erode professional diligence. In health care, discovering racial bias in medical AI chatbots forced providers to confront how automation might compromise their commitment to equitable care.
These failures reveal a deeper truth: Mastering AI requires cultivating sound judgment. Lawyers’ professional integrity demands that they verify AI-generated claims. Doctors’ commitment to patient welfare requires questioning AI recommendations that might perpetuate bias. Each decision to use or reject AI tools shapes not just immediate outcomes but professional character.
Individual workers often have limited control over how their workplaces implement AI, so it is all the more important that professional organizations develop clear guidelines. What’s more, individuals need space to maintain professional integrity within their employers’ rules to exercise their own sound judgment.
Beyond asking “Can AI do this task?” organizations should consider how its implementation could affect workers’ professional judgment and practice. Right now, technology is evolving faster than collective wisdom in using it, making deliberate reflection and virtue-driven practice more essential than ever.
Charting a path forward
Each of these three ethical frameworks illuminates different aspects of our society’s AI dilemma.
Rights-based thinking highlights our obligations to creators whose work trains AI systems. Consequentialism reveals both the broader benefits of AI democratization and its potential threats, including to creative livelihoods. Virtue ethics shows how individual choices about AI shape not just outcomes but professional character.
Together, these perspectives suggest that ethical AI use requires more than new guidelines. It requires rethinking how creative work is valued.
The debate about AI often feels like a battle between innovation and tradition. But this framing misses the real challenge: developing approaches that honor both human creativity and technological progress and allow them to enhance each other. At its core, that balance depends on values.
Leo S. Lo, Dean and Professor, College of University Libraries and Learning Sciences, University of New Mexico
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
STM Daily News is a vibrant news blog dedicated to sharing the brighter side of human experiences. Emphasizing positive, uplifting stories, the site focuses on delivering inspiring, informative, and well-researched content. With a commitment to accurate, fair, and responsible journalism, STM Daily News aims to foster a community of readers passionate about positive change and engaged in meaningful conversations. Join the movement and explore stories that celebrate the positive impacts shaping our world.
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The Knowledge
Century City: From Hollywood Backlot to Business Hub
Century City, originally part of 20th Century Fox’s backlot, transformed into a prominent business district in Los Angeles during the 1950s amid the decline of cinema. Developer William Zeckendorf envisioned a mixed-use urban center, leading to iconic skyscrapers and establishing the area as a hub for law, finance, and media, blending Hollywood history with modern business.
Before Century City became one of Los Angeles’ premier business districts, it was part of 20th Century Fox’s sprawling backlot, used for filming movies and housing studio operations. By the 1950s, as television rose and movie attendance declined, 20th Century Fox faced financial challenges and decided to sell a portion of its land.
Developer William Zeckendorf envisioned a “city within a city”—a modern, mixed-use urban center with office towers, hotels, and entertainment facilities. Branded Century City, the name paid homage to its studio roots while symbolizing LA’s vision for the future.
The first skyscrapers, including the Gateway West Building, set the tone for the district’s sleek, futuristic skyline. Architects like Welton Becket and Minoru Yamasaki helped shape Century City’s iconic look. Over time, it evolved from Hollywood’s backlot to a corporate and legal hub, attracting law firms, financial institutions, and media companies.
Today, Century City stands as a testament to Los Angeles’ postwar optimism, westward expansion, and multi-centered urban growth—a unique blend of Hollywood history and modern business.
Related STM Daily News Links:
- The Evolution of Los Angeles Public Transportation
- Why Los Angeles Grew Into a Sprawling City
- Downtown Los Angeles: Past, Present, and Future
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Community
Local governments provide proof that polarization is not inevitable
Local politics help mitigate national polarization by focusing on concrete issues like infrastructure and community needs rather than divisive symbolic debates. A survey indicates that local officials experience less partisanship, as interpersonal connections foster recognition of shared interests. This suggests that reducing polarization is possible through collaboration and changes in election laws.
Lauren Hall, Rochester Institute of Technology
When it comes to national politics, Americans are fiercely divided across a range of issues, including gun control, election security and vaccines. It’s not new for Republicans and Democrats to be at odds over issues, but things have reached a point where even the idea of compromising appears to be anathema, making it more difficult to solve thorny problems.
But things are much less heated at the local level. A survey of more than 1,400 local officials by the Carnegie Corporation and CivicPulse found that local governments are “largely insulated from the harshest effects of polarization.” Communities with fewer than 50,000 residents proved especially resilient to partisan dysfunction.
Why this difference? As a political scientist, I believe that lessons from the local level not only open a window onto how polarization works but also the dynamics and tools that can help reduce it.
Problems are more concrete
Local governments deal with concrete issues – sometimes literally, when it comes to paving roads and fixing potholes. In general, cities and counties handle day-to-day functions, such as garbage pickup, running schools and enforcing zoning rules. Addressing tangible needs keeps local leaders’ attention fixed on specific problems that call out for specific solutions, not lengthy ideological debates.
By contrast, a lot of national political conflict in the U.S. involves symbolic issues, such as debates about identity and values on topics such as race, abortion and transgender rights. These battles are often divisive, even more so than purely ideological disagreements, because they can activate tribal differences and prove more resistant to compromise.
Such arguments at the national level, or on social media, can lead to wildly inaccurate stereotypes about people with opposing views. Today’s partisans often perceive their opponents as far more extreme than they actually are, or they may stereotype them – imagining that all Republicans are wealthy, evangelical culture warriors, for instance, or conversely being convinced that all Democrats are radical urban activists. In terms of ideology, the median members of both parties, in fact, look similar.
These kinds of misperceptions can fuel hostility.
Local officials, however, live among the human beings they represent, whose complexity defies caricature. Living and interacting in the same communities leads to greater recognition of shared interests and values, according to the Carnegie/CivicPulse survey.
Meaningful interaction with others, including partisans of the opposing party, reduces prejudice about them. Local government provides a natural space where identities overlap.
People are complicated
In national U.S. politics today, large groups of individuals are divided not only by party but a variety of other factors, including race, religion, geography and social networks. When these differences align with ideology, political disagreement can feel like an existential threat.
Such differences are not always as pronounced at the local level. A neighbor who disagrees about property taxes could be the coach of your child’s soccer team. Your fellow school board member might share your concerns about curriculum but vote differently in presidential elections.
These cross-cutting connections remind us that political opponents are not a monolithic enemy but complex individuals. When people discover they have commonalities outside of politics with others holding opposing views, polarization can decrease significantly.
Finally, most local elections are technically nonpartisan. Keeping party labels off ballots allows voters to judge candidates as individuals and not merely as Republicans or Democrats.
National implications
None of this means local politics are utopian.
Like water, polarization tends to run downhill, from the national level to local contests, particularly in major cities where candidates for mayor and other office are more likely to run as partisans. Local governments also see culture war debates, notably in the area of public school instruction.
Nevertheless, the relative partisan calm of local governance suggests that polarization is not inevitable. It emerges from specific conditions that can be altered.
Polarization might be reduced by creating more opportunities for cross-partisan collaboration around concrete problems. Philanthropists and even states might invest in local journalism that covers pragmatic governance rather than partisan conflict. More cities and counties could adopt changes in election law that would de-emphasize party labels where they add little information for voters.
Aside from structural changes, individual Americans can strive to recognize that their neighbors are not the cardboard cutouts they might imagine when thinking about “the other side.” Instead, Americans can recognize that even political opponents are navigating similar landscapes of community, personal challenges and time constraints, with often similar desires to see their roads paved and their children well educated.
The conditions shaping our interactions matter enormously. If conditions change, perhaps less partisan rancor will be the result.
Lauren Hall, Associate professor of Political Science, Rochester Institute of Technology
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The Bridge is a section of the STM Daily News Blog meant for diversity, offering real news stories about bona fide community efforts to perpetuate a greater good. The purpose of The Bridge is to connect the divides that separate us, fostering understanding and empathy among different groups. By highlighting positive initiatives and inspirational actions, The Bridge aims to create a sense of unity and shared purpose. This section brings to light stories of individuals and organizations working tirelessly to promote inclusivity, equality, and mutual respect. Through these narratives, readers are encouraged to appreciate the richness of diverse perspectives and to participate actively in building stronger, more cohesive communities.
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Making a Difference
Why Christian clergy see risk as part of their moral calling
As clergy join protests against harsh immigration enforcement, a religious ethics scholar explains why many Christian Clergy view personal risk—arrest, backlash, even violence—as part of their vocation to protect vulnerable neighbors.
Laura E. Alexander, University of Nebraska Omaha
As Christian clergy across the United States participate in ongoing protests against harsh immigration enforcement actions and further funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, many are still pondering the words of Rob Hirschfeld. On Jan. 18, 2026, Hirschfeld, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire, encouraged clergy in his diocese to “prepare for a new era of martyrdom” and put their wills and affairs in order.
He asserted that “it may be that now is no longer the time for statements, but for us with our bodies to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.”
Hirschfeld’s words attracted a lot of attention, with clergy generally responding positively, though at least one priest argued that he “did not sign up to be a martyr” and had a family and church relying on him.
Other clergy have willingly faced arrest for their advocacy on behalf of immigrants, seeing it as a moral calling. Rev. Karen Larson was arrested while protesting at the Minneapolis airport. She stated that when people are being separated from their families and taken to unknown detention centers, “this is our call” to protest on their behalf.
As a scholar of religious ethics, I am interested in how Christian clergy and thinkers consider personal risk when they feel called to engage in social action.
Ethics of risk
There are many examples of Christian leaders who have taken on risks out of a religious and moral obligation to provide spiritual care for people in need or advocate for oppressed communities.
Most data on the risks that clergy face in their roles as religious leaders comes from studies of religious leaders in institutional settings, such as hospitals or prisons.
Scholarship on clergy and chaplains in medical settings points to a professional obligation to take on risks. Similar to medical providers who often see risking exposure to infection as part of their professional responsibility, many clergy and chaplains in medical settings understand their vocation to include such a risk.
Questions about professional risks became particularly acute during the early years of the HIV/AIDS crisis, when researchers were uncertain exactly how the disease was spread and caregivers feared they might acquire HIV through their bedside work.
In her memoir about chaplaincy with HIV patients, Audrey Elisa Kerr notes that Riverside Church in New York continued to organize funerals, ministries and support groups for HIV/AIDS patients despite “terror” in the wider community about contagion.
As a chaplain herself, Kerr says this story of “radical hospitality” inspired her to set aside her own fears and embrace her professional role caring for people who were ill and dying.
Priests and nuns of the Catholic Church who cared for HIV/AIDS patients in the 1980s risked both the fear of contagion and the disapproval of their bishops and communities, since many of the people they cared for were men who had sex with men.
Some felt, however, that they must care for those at the margins as part of their role in the church or their monastic order. Sister Carol of the Hospital Sisters of Saint Francis felt that it was simply her moral duty as a sister to “go where she was needed,” despite potential risk.
Examination of the ethical obligations of chaplains and clergy ramped up during the COVID-19 pandemic when at least some priest, pastors and hospital chaplains felt an obligation to continue visiting patients for spiritual care.
In a reflection from 2020, Rev. David Hottinger, then working at Hennepin Healthcare in Minneapolis, noted that chaplains “felt privileged” to use their professional skills, even though they took on extra risk because they did not always have access to adequate protective equipment.
Risks in other institutional settings are not such a matter of life and death. Because of their professional preaching function, however, clergy in church settings do accept the risk of alienating church members when they feel religiously called to speak about social issues. Rev. Teri McDowell Ott has written about taking risks when discussing LGBTQ+ inclusion and starting a prison ministry.
Risk-taking during social protest
For many clergy, religious and ethical obligations extend beyond their work in institutions like churches and hospitals and include their witness in public life.
Many feel an obligation to preach on issues of moral importance, even topics that are considered controversial and might elicit strong disagreement. It is common for priests and pastors in conservative churches to include messages against legalized abortion in their sermons.
Tom Ascol of the Center for Baptist Leadership urged Baptist pastors to preach about abortion in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election.
Rev. Leah Schade, a Lutheran minister and scholar, has argued that since 2017, mainline pastors have preached more often on issues like racism, environmental justice or gun violence. Schade says pastors are inspired to speak more bluntly about social issues because of their religious concern for people who are at risk of harm from injustice or government policies.
Some clergy view their moral obligations as going beyond preaching and leading them to on-the-ground advocacy and protest. Rev. Brandy Daniels of the Disciples of Christ denomination examines these obligations in an article on her participation in a group of interfaith clergy in Portland, Oregon. The group was convened by a local rabbi and supported protesters for racial justice in Portland in 2017. In Daniels’ analysis, clergy took on the risk of staying in the middle of protests and facing a violent police response in order to “bear moral witness,” something they were both empowered and obligated to do as religious leaders.
Risking their lives
There are more extreme cases in which clergy who challenged government leaders or policies were killed for their words and actions of protest.
In a well-known historical example, Bishop Oscar Romero, canonized as a martyred saint by the Roman Catholic Church in 2018, was assassinated in 1980 after speaking out against human rights violations against poor and Indigenous communities committed by the government of El Salvador. Romero viewed himself, in his priestly role, as a representative of God who was obliged to “give voice to the voiceless.”
During recent protests against ICE in Minneapolis and elsewhere, many clergy risked arrest and bodily harm. Rev. Kenny Callaghan, a Metropolitan Community Church pastor, who says that ICE agents in Minneapolis pointed a gun in his face and handcuffed him as he tried to help a woman they were questioning, said, “It’s in my DNA; I have to speak up for marginalized people.”
On Jan. 23, 2026, over 100 clergy were arrested at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport as they protested and prayed against ICE actions. Rev. Mariah Furness Tollgaard said that she and others accepted being arrested as a way of demonstrating public support for migrants who are afraid to leave their homes.
In Chicago, ministers have been hit with projectiles and violently arrested. Presbyterian pastor David Black was shot in the head with a pepper spray projectile while protesting outside an immigration detention center in October 2025.
The clergy have told reporters that they feel a particular call to be out in public and to protect and support their vulnerable neighbors against ICE raids, at a time when families are afraid to go to school or work and U.S. citizens have been swept up in enforcement tactics as well.
As I see it, for these and many Christian clergy and ethicists, the call to ministry includes an obligation to express their values of care for vulnerable neighbors precisely through a public willingness to accept personal risk.
Laura E. Alexander, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University of Nebraska Omaha
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
STM Daily News is a vibrant news blog dedicated to sharing the brighter side of human experiences. Emphasizing positive, uplifting stories, the site focuses on delivering inspiring, informative, and well-researched content. With a commitment to accurate, fair, and responsible journalism, STM Daily News aims to foster a community of readers passionate about positive change and engaged in meaningful conversations. Join the movement and explore stories that celebrate the positive impacts shaping our world.
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