# It's Time to Do Something: Mitigating the Negative Impacts of Computing Through a Change to the Peer Review Process

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.09544 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.09544/

## Key facts

- Cited by 11 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 17 Dec 2021.

## Built on by (most cited first, 11 of 11)

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- [Responsible AI Research Needs Impact Statements Too](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.11776/) (2023)
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- [BLIP: Facilitating the Exploration of Undesirable Consequences of Digital Technologies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.06783/) (2024)
- [Atomist or Holist? A Diagnosis and Vision for More Productive Interdisciplinary AI Ethics Dialogue](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.09174/) (2022)
- [Which Review Aspect Has a Greater Impact on the Duration of Open Peer Review in Multiple Rounds? -- Evidence from Nature Communications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.21904/) (2026)
- [Don't "research fast and break things": On the ethics of Computational Social Science](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.06370/) (2022)
- [Position: The Alignment Community is Unintentionally Building a Censor's Toolkit](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.12346/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The computing research community needs to work much harder to address the downsides of our innovations. Between the erosion of privacy, threats to democracy, and automation's effect on employment (among many other issues), we can no longer simply assume that our research will have a net positive impact on the world. While bending the arc of computing innovation towards societal benefit may at first seem intractable, we believe we can achieve substantial progress with a straightforward step: making a small change to the peer review process. As we explain below, we hypothesize that our recommended change will force computing researchers to more deeply consider the negative impacts of their work. We also expect that this change will incentivize research and policy that alleviates computing's negative impacts.