While ethical challenges are widely discussed in HCI, far less is reported about the ethical processes that researchers routinely navigate. We reflect on a multispecies project that negotiated an especially complex ethical approval process. Cat Royale was an artist-led exploration of creating an artwork to engage audiences in exploring trust in autonomous systems. The artwork took the form of a robot that played with three cats. Gaining ethical approval required an extensive dialogue with three Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) covering computer science, veterinary science and animal welfare, raising tensions around the welfare of the cats, perceived benefits and appropriate methods, and reputational risk to the University. To reveal these tensions we introduce beneficiary-epistemology space, that makes explicit who benefits from research (humans or animals) and underlying epistemologies. Positioning projects and IRBs in this space can help clarify tensions and highlight opportunities to recruit additional expertise.

翻译：尽管人机交互领域广泛讨论了伦理挑战，但关于研究人员日常应对的伦理过程却鲜有报道。我们反思了一个多物种项目在协商特别复杂的伦理审批流程时的经验。《猫咪乐园》是一项以艺术家为主导的探索，旨在创作一件艺术品，引导观众探讨对自主系统的信任。这件艺术品以机器人的形式呈现，与三只猫互动。获得伦理批准需要与涵盖计算机科学、兽医学和动物福利的三个机构审查委员会进行广泛对话，这引发了围绕猫的福利、预期收益和适当方法，以及大学声誉风险等层面的张力。为了揭示这些张力，我们引入了受益者-认识论空间，该空间明确了研究受益方（人类或动物）及其背后的认识论。将项目与机构审查委员会置于这一空间中，有助于澄清张力并突显引入额外专业知识的机遇。