Actualizing Ethical Principles for Curating Large-Scale Datasets in the Era of Generative AI

AI technologies have become ubiquitous, influencing domains from healthcare to finance and permeating our daily lives. Concerns about the values underlying the creation and use of datasets to develop AI technologies are growing. Current dataset practices often disregard critical ethical issues, despite the fact that data represents and impacts real people. While progress has been made in establishing best practices for curating datasets in a more ethical fashion, the unprecedented scale of training data and complexity of current and potential AI use cases presents unique challenges that AI researchers and practitioners must now face. For example, large foundation models such as open AI are being used in a wide array of generative AI tools that are increasingly central to daily life and work.

This two-day, in-person workshop aims to unite interdisciplinary researchers and practitioners in an effort to identify the challenges unique to curating ethical datasets for AI models---and then begin to ideate best practices for tackling those challenges. Grounded in interdisciplinary exchange, our aim is to cultivate a diverse community of researchers and practitioners interested in defining the future of ethical responsibility in the composition, process, and release of datasets for AI model training.

We plan to disseminate the outcomes of this workshop to the AI community and beyond by developing a conceptual framework of both the challenges and potential solutions associated specifically with curating datasets for foundation models. We will invite interested workshop participants to contribute to a future publication on these insights.

This will be the first of a three-workshop series with the second occurring at CSCW on October 18th.

• Workshop date: September 15-16, 2025
• Workshop location: ASU California Center Broadway (1111 S Broadway Suite 100, Los Angeles, CA 90015)
• Lodging Information: LA Hotels with ASU preferred rates
• Contact: Shawn Walker and Katie Pine

We invite researchers and practitioners from diverse backgrounds to apply to participate in this workshop. We are particularly interested in individuals who have an interest in or experience with dataset curation, AI model training, or ethical considerations in AI.

We expect to have 20-25 individuals interested in exploring design's role in transforming complex challenges into constructive opportunities to participate in our two-day, in-person workshop. The first day will consist of panels and discussions, while the second day will focus on hands-on activities and collaborative design exercises.

As part of the process we ask that attendees submit a short statement of interest outlining their background, relevant experience, and what they hope to gain from the workshop. We also welcome those who would like to participate in an ignite talk to do so.