An AI ethics review identifies that a social media content recommendation AI maximizes user engagement metrics, leading to increased consumption of emotionally charged and divisive content. Which ethical principle is MOST directly at issue?

Here's the deal — b is correct because the core ethical tension is that maximizing engagement (a narrow business objective) produces a system that may harm individual mental health, promote radicalization, and damage societal discourse — a classic conflict between beneficence (acting in users' best interests) and non-maleficence (avoiding harm). While transparency (A), fairness (C), and accountability (D) are also relevant concerns, the fundamental ethical issue described is the misalignment between the optimization objective and human wellbeing, which sits squarely in beneficence/non-maleficence.