Algorithmic Accountability: Designing Governance for Responsible Digital Transformations

Description:

Building on ongoing international discussions, and in continuation of the team’s previous work within the SAMANSVAR framework on fair labor on platforms and the gig economy, we want to address the socioeconomic effects of increasing adoption of artificial intelligence, algorithmic management, and smart automated systems, whereby increasing productivity gains for organisations are met with concerns about whether the speed of implementation can be matched with necessary levels of accountability and oversight. Our research shall result in an unifying framework for algorithmic accountability for algorithmic management which shall serve as a basis for organizations, regulators, and social communities to take actionable steps towards ensuring accountable algorithmic decision-making processes. To this end, we will first draw a framework for accountable algorithmic decision-making grounded in the literature on legitimacy, participation, and inclusion. Second, we will systematically collect, map, and compare varying notions of algorithmic agency. Here, we will set a particular emphasis on the importance of a ‘co-constitution’ of algorithmic agency between organizations and stakeholders. Third, we will develop actionable guidance towards creating accountable algorithmic decision-making, based on both explainable programming and comprehensible communication of decision-making rationales and data sources. As a practical deliverable, we shall create a normative model for evaluating accountability in algorithmic decision-making processes, examining to what extent the algorithms are transparent, provide proper dispute channels, and enable public oversight. Finally, we will develop a user-friendly accountability enhancing tool, the ‘Framework for Algorithmic Accountability’. The framework will be tested on real-world settings of algorithmic decision-making processes and can be utilised by researchers, activists or lay Internet users to challenge algorithmic systems.

Project leader: Christian Fieseler

Started: 2019

Ends: 2024

Category: Vitenskapelige høyskoler

Sector: UoH-sektor

Budget: 9999000

Institution: STIFTELSEN HANDELSHØYSKOLEN BI

Address: Oslo