AI Experts Want to End 'Black Box' Algorithms in Government

The right to due process was inscribed into the US constitution with a pen. Public agencies responsible for areas such as criminal justice, health, and welfare increasingly use scoring systems and software to steer or make decisions on life-changing events like granting bail, sentencing, enforcement, and prioritizing services. The report from AI Now, a research institute at NYU that studies the social implications of artificial intelligence, says too many of those systems are opaque to the citizens they hold power over. A project by legal scholars that used open-records laws to seek information about algorithms and scoring systems used in criminal justice and welfare in 23 states came back largely empty handed. AI Now’s call for a rethink of government use of algorithms is one of 10 recommendations in the 37-page report, which surveys recent research on the social consequences of advanced-data analytics in areas such as the labor market, socioeconomic inequality, and privacy.