Accountability of AI Under the Law: The Role of Explanation

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Finale Doshi-Velez and Mason Kortz: “The ubiquity of systems using artificial intelligence or “AI” has brought increasing attention to how those systems should be regulated. The choice of how to regulate AI systems will require care. AI systems have the potential to synthesize large amounts of data, allowing for greater levels of personalization and precision than ever before—applications range from clinical decision support to autonomous driving and predictive policing. That said, our AIs continue to lag in common sense reasoning [McCarthy, 1960], and thus there exist legitimate concerns about the intentional and unintentional negative consequences of AI systems [Bostrom, 2003, Amodei et al., 2016, Sculley et al., 2014]. How can we take advantage of what AI systems have to offer, while also holding them accountable?

In this work, we focus on one tool: explanation. Questions about a legal right to explanation from AI systems was recently debated in the EU General Data Protection Regulation [Goodman and Flaxman, 2016, Wachter et al., 2017a], and thus thinking carefully about when and how explanation from AI systems might improve accountability is timely. Good choices about when to demand explanation can help prevent negative consequences from AI systems, while poor choices may not only fail to hold AI systems accountable but also hamper the development of much-needed beneficial AI systems.

Below, we briefly review current societal, moral, and legal norms around explanation, and then focus on the different contexts under which explanation is currently required under the law. We find that there exists great variation around when explanation is demanded, but there also exist important consistencies: when demanding explanation from humans, what we typically want to know is whether and how certain input factors affected the final decision or outcome.

These consistencies allow us to list the technical considerations that must be considered if we desired AI systems that could provide kinds of explanations that are currently required of humans under the law. Contrary to popular wisdom of AI systems as indecipherable black boxes, we find that this level of explanation should generally be technically feasible but may sometimes be practically onerous—there are certain aspects of explanation that may be simple for humans to provide but challenging for AI systems, and vice versa. As an interdisciplinary team of legal scholars, computer scientists, and cognitive scientists, we recommend that for the present, AI systems can and should be held to a similar standard of explanation as humans currently are; in the future we may wish to hold an AI to a different standard….(More)”

The Wikipedia competitor that’s harnessing blockchain for epistemological supremacy

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Peter Rubin at Wired: “At the time of this writing, the opening sentence of Larry Sanger’s Everipedia entry is pretty close to his Wikipedia entry. It describes him as “an American Internet project developer … best known as co-founder of Wikipedia.” By the time you read this, however, it may well mention a new, more salient fact—that Sanger recently became the Chief Information Officer of Everipedia itself, a site that seeks to become a better version of the online encyclopedia than the one he founded back in 2001. To do that, Sanger’s new employer is trying something that no other player in the space has done: moving to a blockchain.

Oh, blockchain, that decentralized “global ledger” that provides the framework for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (as well as a thousand explainer videos, and seemingly a thousand startups’ business plans). Blockchain already stands to make medical patient data easier to move and improve food safety; now, Everipedia’s founders hope, it will allow for a more powerful, accountable encyclopedia.

Here’s how it’ll work. Everipedia already uses a points system where creating articles and approved edits amasses “IQ.” In January, when the site moves over to a blockchain, Everipedia will convert IQ scores to a token-based currency, giving all existing editors an allotment proportionate to their IQ—and giving them a real, financial stake in Everipedia. From then on, creating and curating articles will allow users to earn tokens, which act as virtual shares of the platform. To prevent bad actors from trying to cash in with ill-founded or deliberately false articles and edits, Everipedia will force users to put up a token of their own in order to submit. If their work is accepted, they get their token back, plus a little bit for their contribution; if not, they lose their token. The assumption is that other users, motivated by the desire to maintain the site’s value, will actively seek to prevent such efforts….

This isn’t the first time a company has proposed a decentralized blockchain-based encyclopedia; earlier this year, a company called Lunyr announced similar plans. However, judging from Lunyr’s most recent roadmap, Everipedia will beat it to market with room to spare….(More)”.

There’s more to evidence-based policies than data: why it matters for healthcare

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

 at The Conversation: “The big question is: how can countries strengthen their health systems to deliver accessible, affordable and equitable care when they are often under-financed and governed in complex ways?

One answer lies in governments developing policies and programmes that are informed by evidence of what works or doesn’t. This should include what we would call “traditional data”, but should also include a broader definition of evidence. This would mean including, for example, information from citizens and stakeholders as well as programme evaluations. In this way, policies can be made more relevant for the people they affect.

Globally there is an increasing appreciation for this sort of policymaking that relies of a broader definition of evidence. Countries such as South Africa, Ghana and Thailand provide good examples.

What is evidence?

Using evidence to inform the development of health care has grown out of the use of science to choose the best decisions. It is based on data being collected in a methodical way. This approach is useful but it can’t always be neatly applied to policymaking. There are several reasons for this.

The first is that there are many different types of evidence. Evidence is more than data, even though the terms are often used to mean the same thing. For example, there is statistical and administrative data, research evidence, citizen and stakeholder information as well as programme evaluations.

The challenge is that some of these are valued more than others. More often than not, statistical data is more valued in policymaking. But both researchers and policymakers must acknowledge that for policies to be sound and comprehensive, different phases of policymaking process would require different types of evidence.

Secondly, data-as-evidence is only one input into policymaking. Policymakers face a long list of pressures they must respond to, including time, resources, political obligations and unplanned events.

Researchers may push technically excellent solutions designed in research environments. But policymakers may have other priorities in mind: are the solutions being put to them practical and affordable?Policymakers also face the limitations of having to balance various constituents while straddling the constraints of the bureaucracies they work in.

Researchers must recognise that policymakers themselves are a source of evidence of what works or doesn’t. They are able to draw on their own experiences, those of their constituents, history and their contextual knowledge of the terrain.

What this boils down to is that for policies that are based on evidence to be effective, fewer ‘push/pull’ models of evidence need to be used. Instead the models where evidence is jointly fashioned should be employed.

This means that policymakers, researchers and other key actors (like health managers or communities) must come together as soon as a problem is identified. They must first understand each other’s ideas of evidence and come to a joint conclusion of what evidence would be appropriate for the solution.

In South Africa, for example, the Department of Environmental Affairshas developed a four-phase process to policymaking. In the first phase, researchers and policymakers come together to set the agenda and agree on the needed solution. Their joint decision is then reviewed before research is undertaken and interpreted together….(More)”.

A New City O/S: The Power of Open, Collaborative, and Distributed Governance

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Stephen Goldsmith and Neil Kleiman: “At a time when trust is dropping precipitously and American government at the national level has fallen into a state of long-term, partisan-based gridlock, local government can still be effective—indeed more effective and even more responsive to the needs of its citizens. Based on decades of direct experience and years studying successful models around the world, the authors of this intriguing book propose a new operating system (O/S) for cities. Former mayor and Harvard professor Stephen Goldsmith and New York University professor Neil Kleiman suggest building on the giant leaps that have been made in technology, social engagement, and big data.

Calling their approach “distributed governance,” Goldsmith and Kleiman offer a model that allows public officials to mobilize new resources, surface ideas from unconventional sources, and arm employees with the information they need to become pre-emptive problem solvers. This book highlights lessons from the many innovations taking place in today’s cities to show how a new O/S can create systemic transformation.

For students of government, A New City O/S: The Power of Distributed Governance presents a groundbreaking strategy for rethinking the governance of cities, marking an important evolution of the current bureaucratic authority-based model dating from the 1920s. More important, the book is designed for practitioners, starting with public-sector executives, managers, and frontline workers. By weaving real-life examples into a coherent model, the authors have created a step-by-step guide for all those who would put the needs of citizens front and center. Nothing will do more to restore trust in government than solutions that work. A New City O/S: The Power of Distributed Governanceputs those solutions within reach of those public officials responsible for their delivery….(More)”.

Blockchain: Unpacking the disruptive potential of blockchain technology for human development.

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

IDRC white paper: “In the scramble to harness new technologies to propel innovation around the world, artificial intelligence, robotics, machine learning, and blockchain technologies are being explored and deployed in a wide variety of contexts globally.

Although blockchain is one of the most hyped of these new technologies, it is also perhaps the least understood. Blockchain is the distributed ledger — a database that is shared across multiple sites or institutions to furnish a secure and transparent record of events occurring during the provision of a service or contract — that supports cryptocurrencies (digital assets designed to work as mediums of exchange).

Blockchain is now underpinning applications such as land registries and identity services, but as its popularity grows, its relevance in addressing socio-economic gaps and supporting development targets like the globally-recognized UN Sustainable Development Goals is critical to unpack. Moreover, for countries in the global South that want to be more than just end users or consumers, the complex infrastructure requirements and operating costs of blockchain could prove challenging. For the purposes of real development, we need to not only understand how blockchain is workable, but also who is able to harness it to foster social inclusion and promote democratic governance.

This white paper explores the potential of blockchain technology to support human development. It provides a non-technical overview, illustrates a range of applications, and offers a series of conclusions and recommendations for additional research and potential development programming….(More)”.

Decoding Data Use: What evidence do world leaders want to achieve their goals?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Samantha Custer, Takaaki Masaki, and Carolyn Iwicki: “Information is “never the hero”, but it plays a supporting role in how leaders allocate scarce resources and accelerate development in their communities. Even in low- and middle-income countries, decision-makers have ample choices in sourcing evidence from a growing field of domestic and international data providers. However, more information is not necessarily better if it misses the mark for what leaders need to monitor their country’s progress. Claims that information is the “world’s most valuable resource” and calls for a “data revolution” will ring hollow if we can’t decode what leaders actually use — and why.

In a new report, Decoding Data Use: How leaders source data and use it to accelerate development, AidData reveals what 3500 leaders from 126 countries have to say about the types of data or analysis they use, from what sources, and for which purposes in the context of their work.  We analyze responses to AidData’s 2017 Listening to Leaders (LTL) Survey to offer insights to help funders, producers, advocates, and infomediaries of development data understand how to position themselves for greater impact….(more)”.

Influenzanet: Citizens Among 10 Countries Collaborating to Monitor Influenza in Europe

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Carl E Koppeschaar et al in the Special Issue of JMIR Public Health and Surveillance on Participatory Disease Surveillance: “The wide availability of the Internet and the growth of digital communication technologies have become an important tool for epidemiological studies and health surveillance. Influenzanet is a participatory surveillance system monitoring the incidence of influenza-like illness (ILI) in Europe since 2003. It is based on data provided by volunteers who self-report their symptoms via the Internet throughout the influenza season and currently involves 10 countries.

Objective: In this paper, we describe the Influenzanet system and provide an overview of results from several analyses that have been performed with the collected data, which include participant representativeness analyses, data validation (comparing ILI incidence rates between Influenzanet and sentinel medical practice networks), identification of ILI risk factors, and influenza vaccine effectiveness (VE) studies previously published. Additionally, we present new VE analyses for the Netherlands, stratified by age and chronic illness and offer suggestions for further work and considerations on the continuity and sustainability of the participatory system.

Methods: Influenzanet comprises country-specific websites where residents can register to become volunteers to support influenza surveillance and have access to influenza-related information. Participants are recruited through different communication channels. Following registration, volunteers submit an intake questionnaire with their postal code and sociodemographic and medical characteristics, after which they are invited to report their symptoms via a weekly electronic newsletter reminder. Several thousands of participants have been engaged yearly in Influenzanet, with over 36,000 volunteers in the 2015-16 season alone.

Results: In summary, for some traits and in some countries (eg, influenza vaccination rates in the Netherlands), Influenzanet participants were representative of the general population. However, for other traits, they were not (eg, participants underrepresent the youngest and oldest age groups in 7 countries). The incidence of ILI in Influenzanet was found to be closely correlated although quantitatively higher than that obtained by the sentinel medical practice networks. Various risk factors for acquiring an ILI infection were identified. The VE studies performed with Influenzanet data suggest that this surveillance system could develop into a complementary tool to measure the effectiveness of the influenza vaccine, eventually in real time.

Conclusions: Results from these analyses illustrate that Influenzanet has developed into a fast and flexible monitoring system that can complement the traditional influenza surveillance performed by sentinel medical practices. The uniformity of Influenzanet allows for direct comparison of ILI rates between countries. It also has the important advantage of yielding individual data, which can be used to identify risk factors. The way in which the Influenzanet system is constructed allows the collection of data that could be extended beyond those of ILI cases to monitor pandemic influenza and other common or emerging diseases….(More)”. (see also https://www.influenzanet.eu/)

How Muckrakers Use Crowdsourcing: Case Studies from ProPublica to The Guardian

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Toby McIntosh at Global Investigative Journalism:”…Creative use of social media provides new ways for journalists not just to solicit tips, but also to tap readers’ expertise, opinions and personal experiences.

A stronger ethos of reader engagement is resulting in more sophisticated appeals from journalists for assistance with investigations, including:

  • Seeking tips on very defined topics
  • Asking readers to talk about their experiences on broad subjects
  • Inviting comments after publication

Here are examples of what your colleagues are doing:

Hey, Shell Employees!

Dutch reporter Jelmer Mommers of Dutch news site De Correspondent appealed directly to Shell employees for information in a lengthy blog post, as described in this article. The resulting investigation revealed that Shell had detailed knowledge of the dangers of climate change more than a quarter century ago.

Along the way, in what Jelmer calls “the most romantic moment,” came the surprise delivery of a box full of internal documents. De Correspondent’s emphasis on communicating with subscribers is described here.

Call for Childbirth Experiences

Getting reader input in advance was key to a major U.S. story on maternal health to which thousands of people contributed. ProPublica  engagement reporter Adriana Gallardo and her colleagues published a questionnaire in February of 2017 aimed at women who had experienced life-threatening complications in childbirth.

Using a variety of social media channels, Gallardo, along with ProPublica’s Nina Martin and NPR’s Renee Montagne, received several thousand responses. The personal stories fueled a series and the connections made are still being maintained for follow-up work. Read more in this this GIJN article.

Testimonials from Mexico’s Drug War

“Anyone’s Child Mexico” is a documentary about the families affected by Mexico’s drug war. To gather stories, the producers of the documentary publicized a free phone line through local partners and asked people across Mexico to call in and recount their stories.

Callers could also listen to other testimonials. With funding from the University of Bristol’s Brigstow Institute, producers Matthew Brown, Ewan Cass-Kavanagh, Mary Ryder and Jane Slater created a website to bring together audio, photos, video and text and tell harrowing stories of a country ravaged by violence….(More)”.

Issue Voter

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

About: “When we vote, we’re hiring our elected officials. We pay their salaries with our tax dollars. Imagine hiring an employee, paying and promoting them, yet never seeing any of their work. That’s essentially what we’re all doing when we vote & re- elect. And incumbents are re-elected over 90% of the time.

We’re living with an outdated system

  • Bills are difficult to research and understand,
  • Contacting reps still involves snail mail, picking up the phone, or filling out long forms online,
  • Petitions don’t work. To elected officials, petitions are merely a list of names – you may not be one of their voters, and the person signing the petition has no way to track outcomes

Engage with Your Political Process

Track your rep’s activity. We tell you how your rep voted, how often your representative agrees with you, and whether or not they’ve attended a vote.

Encourage open discussion. You can share an issue on your favorite social network, without revealing your personal opinion.

Act on issues that don’t make headlines. We don’t only tell you about what is breaking the news; we check for updates every hour to make sure you have the latest information.

Become an informed voter. Using IssueVoter year-round informs you before elections and keeps money’s influence out of your opinion. Only re-elect reps who truly represented you….(More)”.

The frontiers of data interoperability for sustainable development

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report from the Joined-Up Data Standards [JUDS] project: “…explores where progress has been made, what challenges still remain, and how the new Collaborative on SDG Data Interoperability will play a critical role in moving forward the agenda for interoperability policy.

There is an ever-growing need for a more holistic picture of development processes worldwide and interoperability solutions that can be scaled, driven by global development agendas such as the 2030 Agenda and the Open Data movement. This requires the ability to join up data across multiple data sources and standards to create actionable information.

Solutions that create value for front-line decision makers — health centre managers, local school authorities or water and sanitation committees, for example, and those engaged in government accountability – will be crucial to meet the data needs of the SDGs, and do so in an internationally comparable way. While progress has been made at both a national and international level, moving from principle to practice by embedding interoperability into day-to-day work continues to present challenges.

Based on research and learning generated by the JUDS project team at Development Initiatives and Publish What You Fund, as well as inputs from interviews with key stakeholders, this report aims to provide an overview of the different definitions and components of interoperability and why it is important, and an outline of the current policy landscape.

We offer a set of guiding principles that we consider essential to implementing interoperability, and contextualise the five frontiers of interoperability for sustainable development that we have identified. The report also offers recommendations on what the role of the Collaborative could be in this fast-evolving landscape….(More)”.