Like a Researcher Stating Broader Impact For the Very First Time
This paper addresses the practical implementation and researcher reception of ethics statements in AI research for conference organizers and the NeurIPS community.
This paper investigates how individual researchers reacted to the new broader impact statement requirement for NeurIPS submissions, including their views, drafting experiences, and post-acceptance reflections. The study presents survey results and considerations to inform future iterations of this requirement.
In requiring that a statement of broader impact accompany all submissions for this year's conference, the NeurIPS program chairs made ethics part of the stake in groundbreaking AI research. While there is precedent from other fields and increasing awareness within the NeurIPS community, this paper seeks to answer the question of how individual researchers reacted to the new requirement, including not just their views, but also their experience in drafting and their reflections after paper acceptances. We present survey results and considerations to inform the next iteration of the broader impact requirement should it remain a requirement for future NeurIPS conferences.