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Cited by 128Ethics and Social Impacts of AIEthics in Business and EducationTechnology's Impact on Media

Ethical implications of text generation in the age of artificial intelligence

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Illia, Laura, Colleoni, Elanor, Zyglidopoulos, Stelios·2023·Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility
DOI 10.1111/beer.12479
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Abstract

We are at a turning point in the debate on the ethics of Artificial Intelligence (AI) because we are witnessing the rise of general‐purpose AI text agents such as GPT‐3 that can generate large‐scale highly refined content that appears to have been written by a human. Yet, a discussion on the ethical issues related to the blurring of the roles between humans and machines in the production of content in the business arena is lacking. In this conceptual paper, drawing on agenda setting theory and stakeholder theory, we challenge the current debate on the ethics of AI and aim to stimulate studies that develop research around three new challenges of AI text agents: automated mass manipulation and disinformation (i.e., fake agenda problem), massive low‐quality content production (i.e., lowest denominator problem) and the creation of a growing buffer in the communication between stakeholders (i.e., the mediation problem).

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  • ChatGPT could be used to gain insight into an individual's behavior, opinions, and activities, leading to manipulation and unethical exploitation.

    “For example, the technology could be used to gain insight into an individual's behavior, opinions, and activities, leading to manipulation and unethical exploitation (Illia et al., 2022;Gibney, 2022).”

    From The Future of Artificial Intelligence in Special Education Technology (2023) · cites this paper as Illia et al., 2022

    Section 2.1 (page unavailable) says AI agents learn patterns from user-generated data and describes the collection and exploitation of information from users’ digital activities. Section 4 (page unavailable) says accumulated personal information could enable AI agents to mislead individuals. The paper discusses GPT-3 and AI agents, but does not specifically say ChatGPT can infer an individual’s behavior, opinions, and activities. (LLM, conf=0.82)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • There are two major streams of LLM-generated text detectors: zero-shot classifiers and watermark detectors.

    “Currently, there are 2 major streams of LLM-generated text detectors: (i) zero-shot classifiers [25, 33], which identify LLM-generated text based on the pattern and characteristics of the input, and (ii) watermark detectors [17], which rely on detecting the presence of watermarks which are imprinted into the text during the generation process [16], and are effective in the cases where the waterm”

    From Understanding the effects of human-written paraphrases in LLM-generated text detection (2025) · cites this paper as [16]

    The Introduction discusses GPT-3 performing “zero-shot tasks,” but not zero-shot classifiers for detecting generated text. Section 3.1 discusses features used in fake-news detection; neither it nor the additional passages found for watermark detectors and watermarks addresses the claimed two-stream classification or watermarks imprinted during generation. (LLM, conf=0.75)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

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Cited by

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Authors
Illia, L., Colleoni, E., & Zyglidopoulos, S.
Affiliations
  • University of Fribourg (CH)
  • IULM University (IT)
  • Kedge Business School (FR)
Corresponding author
Illia, Laura
ORCID
Venue
Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2022-09-07
Volume
32
Issue
1
Pages
201-210
ISSN
  • 2694-6416 (ISSN-L)
  • 2694-6424
DOI
10.1111/beer.12479
OpenAlex
W4297832101
Cited by
128
References
13
Citations by year
2026: 18 · 2025: 34 · 2024: 51 · 2023: 24 · 2022: 1
FWCI
31.90
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
Business Ethics the Environment & Responsibility (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Safety Research › Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Ethics in Business and Education
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Technology's Impact on Media
Keywords
AI text generation, GPT-3, AI ethics, agenda-setting theory, stakeholder theory, disinformation, stakeholder communication, business communication

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