Algorithmic Transparency and Accountability

Algorithms in AI and data science software are having increasing impacts on individuals and society. Along with the many benefits of intelligent systems, potential harmful bias needs to be addressed. A USACM-EUACM joint statement was released on May 25, 2017, and can be found at http://www.acm.org/binaries/content/assets/publicpolicy/2017_joint_statement_algorithms.pdf. See the ACM Technology Blog for discussion of the statement. The ACM US Public Policy Council approved the principles earlier this year.

In a message to USACM members, ACM Director of Public Policy Renee Dopplick, said, “EUACM has endorsed the Statement on Algorithmic Transparency and Accountability. Furthering its impacts, we are re-releasing it as a joint statement with a related media release. The USACM-EUACM Joint Statement demonstrates and affirms shared support for these principles to help minimize the potential for harm in algorithmic decision making and thus strengthens our ability to further expand our policy and media impacts.”

The joint statement aims to present the technical challenges and opportunities to prevent and mitigate potential harmful bias. The set of principles, consistent with the ACM Code of Ethics, is included in the statement and is intended to support the benefits of algorithmic decision-making while addressing these concerns.

The Principles for Algorithmic Transparency and Accountability from the joint statement are as follows:

1. Awareness: Owners, designers, builders, users, and other stakeholders of analytic systems should be aware of the possible biases involved in their design, implementation, and use and the potential harm that biases can cause to individuals and society.
2. Access and redress: Regulators should encourage the adoption of mechanisms that enable questioning and redress for individuals and groups that are adversely affected by algorithmically informed decisions.
3. Accountability: Institutions should be held responsible for decisions made by the algorithms that they use, even if it is not feasible to explain in detail how the algorithms produce their results.
4. Explanation: Systems and institutions that use algorithmic decision-making are encouraged to produce explanations regarding both the procedures followed by the algorithm and the specific decisions that are made. This is particularly important in public policy contexts.
5. Data Provenance: A description of the way in which the training data was collected should be maintained by the builders of the algorithms, accompanied by an exploration of the potential biases induced by the human or algorithmic data-gathering process. Public scrutiny of the data provides maximum opportunity for corrections. However, concerns over privacy, protecting trade secrets, or revelation of analytics that might allow malicious actors to game the system can justify restricting access to qualified and authorized individuals.
6. Auditability: Models, algorithms, data, and decisions should be recorded so that they can be audited in cases where harm is suspected.
7. Validation and Testing: Institutions should use rigorous methods to validate their models and document those methods and results. In particular, they should routinely perform tests to assess and determine whether the model generates discriminatory harm. Institutions are encouraged to make the results of such tests public.

We welcome your comments in the AI Matters blog and the ACM Technology Blog.