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From algorithmic accountability to digital governance

Nature Machine Intelligence volume 4, pages 508–509 (2022)Cite this article

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To the Editor — On 3 February 2022, the Algorithmic Accountability Act of 2022 (AAA) was introduced in the US Congress1. The bill addresses growing concerns about automated decision systems (ADS). It proposes that organizations that deploy ADS take concrete steps to identify and mitigate potential harms. Overall, the AAA constitutes a pragmatic approach to balancing the benefits and risks brought by ADS. However, there is room for improvement. This Correspondence highlights promising aspects of the bill and areas that need further revisions.

First, we consider the merits. The focus of the AAA on procedural regularity and transparency is promising. The AAA does not seek to prohibit or limit the use of ADS. Instead, it aims to establish the governance infrastructure needed to hold bad actors to account, and allow actors with good intent to ensure that their ADS are ethical, legal and safe. To that end, the AAA requires organizations to perform impact assessments of both ADS before their deployment and augmented decision-making processes after the deployment of ADS. Like all governance mechanisms, impact assessments have limitations. For example, they may fail to identify specific harms or reduce ethics to a box-ticking exercise. Nevertheless, combined with strong institutional backing, impact assessments help to spark ethical deliberation and generate traceable documentation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Jakob Mökander & Luciano Floridi

  2. Department of Legal Studies, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Luciano Floridi

Authors
  1. Jakob Mökander
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  2. Luciano Floridi
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Correspondence to Jakob Mökander.

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Mökander, J., Floridi, L. From algorithmic accountability to digital governance. Nat Mach Intell 4, 508–509 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42256-022-00504-5

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