Cambridge Forum on AI: Culture and Society publishes research both about and produced with artificial intelligence (AI): research about the social and cultural implications of AI, studies employing AI to develop new methodologies for critical research, and research oriented to new interdisciplinary paradigms for AI. In so doing, the journal brings together social science, humanities and artistic (SSHA) research on epistemologies, histories and practices of AI with computer science and data science (STEM) AI research, casting light on how AI applications translate, undermine or advance the diversity of social and cultural values and lifeworlds. 

Cambridge Forum on AI: Culture and Society is part of the Cambridge Forum journal series, which progresses cross-disciplinary conversations on issues of global importance. 

The journal invites submissions for its upcoming Themed Issue: Empirical AI Ethics, which will be Guest Edited by Selin Gerlek and Paula Helm.  

In the first instance, please submit an abstract of 500 words (excluding references) to the journal at cfc@cambridge-org.demo.remotlog.com and the issue editors: p.m.helm@uva.nl and s.gerlek@uva.nl. If your abstract is accepted, you will be invited to submit a full paper. You will be notified within 2 weeks of the abstract submission deadline. 

The deadline for submissions of abstracts is 1 March 2025. 

The deadline for submissions of full papers is 1 July 2025. Submissions of full papers should be made through the journal's online peer review system. Authors should consult the journal’s author instructions prior to submission.

All full papers will be peer reviewed in line with the journal’s review process. Acceptance of an abstract does not guarantee acceptance of the full paper.

Description 

In recent years, AI has become a central force in shaping various aspects of human life, ranging from decision-making over cultural production to societal infrastructures, sparking wide-ranging ethical debates. However, classical approaches to AI ethics often rely on abstract principles and Western-centric perspectives that may overlook the lived experience of those directly and even indirectly affected by AI systems. This themed issue seeks to address these issues by focusing on empirical approaches to AI ethics, which ground ethical reflection on concrete practices, values and experiences.

Empirical AI Ethics continues the so-called empirical turn in epistemology, the humanities and beyond by connecting insights gained through qualitative and quantitative research with value considerations. The analytical focus thereby shifts from a focus on top-down ethical principles to understanding what different actors and stakeholders consider desirable and undesirable practices, whether at the individual, societal or institutional level. Empirical AI Ethics, as advanced in this themed issue, enacts a turn towards a horizontal perspective (bottom-up or from within), captured in terms like ethics in practice, fieldwork ethics, empirical philosophy, or everyday ethics. 

While there are several approaches to empirical ethics, this issue will present reflections inspired by lines of tradition within philosophy and anthropology that build on a situated understanding of knowledge, including science and technology studies (STS), feminist care and biomedical ethics, postphenomenology, material semiotics, and praxeology. Unlike classical AI ethics, such empirical approaches to AI ethics do not determine a priori what is good and right. Instead, enquiry focuses on the perspectives and opinions of affected communities regarding normative issues emerging vis-à-vis the implementation of AI systems within various areas of life. In addition, through participant observation and different forms of public intervention or case study, hegemonic tools, procedures, norms, infrastructures, and institutions can be challenged by comparing them to alternative perspectives offering different conceptions of what is good and right. 

We invite contributions that feature relevant case studies as well as conceptual and methodological considerations, focusing on but not restricted to the following approaches and topics: 

• Horizontal Approaches to AI Ethics
• Everyday Ethics and Ethics from Within
• Feminist Data Science and Empirical Ethics
• Care Ethics and Fieldwork
• Ethics of AI, Logistics, and Infrastructures
• Empirical Philosophy and AI
• Decolonial Approaches to AI Ethics
• Indigenous AI and Ethics
• AI and Public Affairs
• Ethnographic Inquiries into Values and AI
• Artistic Inquiries into AI Ethics
• Ethics and Global Digital Infrastructures
• Ethics of Interface Design
• Experimental AI Ethics
• Speculative Fiction and AI Ethics
• Digital Citizenship Studies

 

Contributions may resonate with either one or a combination of these directions. In doing so, this issue will unite conceptual reflection on, exemplary cases of, and experiments in Empirical AI Ethics. Together, the selected papers will illuminate a range of methodological and epistemological directions, and ontological speculations, updating existing debates on both fundamental and everyday decision-making regarding the development, implementation, and usage of AI systems.

Submission guidelines 

Cambridge Forum on AI: Culture and Society seeks to engage multiple subject disciplines and promote dialogue between policymakers and practitioners as well as academics. The journal, therefore, encourages authors to use an accessible writing style.

Authors have the option to submit a range of article types to the journal. Please see the journal’s author instructions for more information.

Articles will be peer reviewed for both content and style. Articles will appear digitally and open access in the journal.  

All submissions should be made through the journal’s online peer review system. Author should consult the journal’s author instructions prior to submission.

All authors will be required to declare any funding and/or competing interests upon submission. See the journal’s Publishing Ethics guidelines for more information.

Contacts

Questions regarding submission and peer review can be sent to the journal’s inbox at cfc@cambridge-org.demo.remotlog.com