Abstract
Should decision-making algorithms be held to higher standards of transparency than human beings? The way we answer this question directly impacts what we demand from explainable algorithms, how we govern them via regulatory proposals, and how explainable algorithms may help resolve the social problems associated with decision making supported by artificial intelligence. Some argue that algorithms and humans should be held to the same standards of transparency and that a double standard of transparency is hardly justified. We give two arguments to the contrary and specify two kinds of situations for which higher standards of transparency are required from algorithmic decisions as compared to humans. Our arguments have direct implications on the demands from explainable algorithms in decision-making contexts such as automated transportation.
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Notes
Zerilli et al. do not consider different reasons that might justify a double standard. One such reason might be that, unlike machines, human beings have a right to privacy and so are protected from intrusive forms of transparency. It may turn out that AI systems are perhaps not demanded to be transparent because the transparency of human decision making is overestimated – but because humans enjoy rights machines do not. Here, however, we will not develop this possibility any further.
We suspect that our example generalises: whenever an artefact is malfunctioning due to a technical detail, design level explanations are called for. Otherwise we will not understand the artefact’s defective behavior.
Zerilli et al. use the terms ‘action’ and ‘behavior’ interchangeably in their paper. For the purpose of this paper, we do the same.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to express our deep gratitude to Alistair Knott, James Maclaurin, and Colin Gavaghan for valuable discussions and suggestions at the University of Otago, New Zealand. Special thanks go to John Zerilli for extensive comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Furthermore, we are very grateful for the opportunity to present this work at a seminar of the Humanising Machine Intelligence project at the Australian National University. We are thankful for insightful feedback from the members of the project, in particular Seth Lazar, Sylvie Thiebaux, Damian Clifford, Pamela Robinson, and Jenny Davis. Finally, we would like to thank each other.
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Günther, M., Kasirzadeh, A. Algorithmic and human decision making: for a double standard of transparency. AI & Soc 37, 375–381 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-021-01200-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-021-01200-5