We Hold People With Power To Account. Why Not Algorithms? (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: All around us, algorithms provide a kind of convenient source of authority: an easy way to delegate responsibility, a short cut we take without thinking. Who is really going to click through to the second page of Google results every time and think critically about the information that has been served up? Or go to every airline to check if a comparison site is listing the cheapest deals? Or get out a ruler and a road map to confirm that their GPS is offering the shortest route? But already in our hospitals, our schools, our shops, our courtrooms and our police stations, artificial intelligence is silently working behind the scenes, feeding on our data and making decisions on our behalf. Sure, this technology has the capacity for enormous social good -- it can help us diagnose breast cancer, catch serial killers, avoid plane crashes and, as the health secretary, Matt Hancock, has proposed, potentially save lives using NHS data and genomics. Unless we know when to trust our own instincts over the output of a piece of software, however, it also brings the potential for disruption, injustice and unfairness.

If we permit flawed machines to make life-changing decisions on our behalf -- by allowing them to pinpoint a murder suspect, to diagnose a condition or take over the wheel of a car -- we have to think carefully about what happens when things go wrong.

Comments

Ultimately, a human should be held accountable

[Anonymous Coward]

If a prosecutor or judge uses an algorithm to set sentencing or determine parole, the individual prosecutor or judge should still be held accountable if he was in error.

This applies if the algorithm is a "paper and pencil" fill-out-a-worksheet algorithm or if it's a complex computational algorithm that the judge or prosecutor can't understand. In the latter case, if the judge or prosecutor can't understand the tools he is using, perhaps he should use less sophisticated tools that he does understand.

Re:Ultimately, a human should be held accountable

[jellomizer]

This is sometime I keep on trying to state at work.
This program will help you find things easier. However I cannot program judgement and years of experience, even a learning algorithm may not have data because some things are not recorded.
Customer X has been a good customer for years, however this month he is behind, this customer actually called the company and let them know that. The computer algorithm will see the late payment, and perhaps send it collection, it doesn't care about the long term relationship.
An algorithm should be allowed to run, however a human is ultimately responsible to but a stop to an action.

Since when?

[pablo_max]

Seriously, the "powerful" have not been help accountable for fuck-all in the US since after the 50's.

Maybe you should rather start with that before you starting picking on maths.

Re:Since when?

[Luthair]

I think you're optimistic, the only time in human history when people in power are held to account is when they were lynched by a mob.

Re:Since when?

[lgw]

They were accountable before the 50s?

The only thing that ever held those in power accountable was competition from others with power. For most of the medieval period, for example, church and state each limited the excess of the other. Local Baron get to evil with his serfs? Local clergy would call him out on his immorality, even if they were total hypocrites, in order for the church to gain power at the expense of the secular authorities (and vice versa). When the balance of power tilted too far towards the church in the late medieval/early renaissance, we got the Inquisition, as there just wasn't enough secular power to challenge that.

You can see similar balances of power throughout history, usually between religious and secular authorities.

Right now we have an entirely fictitious "competition" for power between government and large corporations. But that's all a fraud to deceive voters: they together form the Establishment, all pro-mega-corp all the the time. Voters get a false choice between "more regulation" and "freer market", but that's all bullshit because there are only foxes guarding all the hen-houses.

Re:Since when?

[MachineShedFred]

I was going to say the same thing. I don't accept the premise of the headline, due to absolutely nobody of consequence being held accountable for anything of consequence for the financial meltdown / subprime mortgage fiasco. Once we actually start holding people accountable for things, we can then worry about evil bits being set in registers.

We hold powerful people to account?!

[Bugler412]

That's news to me

Algorithm Jail

[goombah99]

Yes I have a folder I keep all the naughty algorithms in. If they escape I erase their stacks. Real death

Re:uninformed point of view

[mujadaddy]

uninformed point of view

Guardian tech story

Pick two.

Ultimately, humans ARE responsible

[argStyopa]

In the OP's posted story, Robert was the dumb fuck that almost drove off a cliff.
You cannot hold algorithms accountable, they're NOT PEOPLE. They cannot be punished. They don't feel remorse.

All we can do is to explicitly build a legislative system that follows the trail back to the human that gave the algorithm that power.

If Bob is driving a car, it's STILL Bob's responsibility to watch to damned road.
If Bob is sold a self-driving car with the written assurance from the dealer that this car will drive itself in conditions a, b, and c, if Bob gets killed during a, b, or c, ultimately the dealer is liable at LEAST for manslaughter, worse if they knew it wasn't perfected.

If the dealer was assured by the manufacturer, then the manufacturer is responsible. I would even say all the way to personal liability the person or group of persons who signed-off that this *was* capable.
Don't like that risk, Mr Auto Executive? Then don't sign off that X is safe until you're willing to take that risk.

(And I don't know if I'm just excessively cynical, but I don't see a lot of "holding people with power" to account EITHER. Hell, I don't see that holding ANY people to account - even for the logical consequences of their OWN CHOICES - is much of a priority in our society.)

We DON'T Hold people with power accountable

[Archangel Michael]

We rarely hold people with power accountable. Instead, decisions are made in committee and by a series of processes that obfuscate and remove culpability of decisions from those that are authorizing it.

Lets say to do Action A, it requires approval by several committees or individuals. We'll keep it simple.

Committee 1 votes to do Action A (sounds like a good idea)
Person 1 checks to see if Action A(b) violates some metric (it doesn't)
Person 2 checks to see if Action A(c) passes certain functional tests. (it does)
Person 3 verifies results of tests A(b) and A(c) (it does)
Committee 2 finalizes approval of Action A

Action A causes massive death due to Action A doing something nobody checked for. There is no person responsible for this, it was just a bad "accident". However, looking back, Action A was a bad idea from the start, but it passed all the tests. Nobody is responsible.

Hillary can say with clear conscience that her signature on Uranium One deal was only one of 17 required, it isn't her fault. Even though the sale of Uranium to the Russians was stupid idea, no one person can be blamed. No accountability. The buck stops in committee.

First, we do not

[gweihir]

Be powerful enough and you can commit almost any crime and get away with it. Second, you cannot hold an abstract concept accountable.