Algorithmic Impact Assessments: Toward Accountable Automation in Public Agencies

In the coming months, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio will announce a new task force on "Automated Decision Systems" -- the first of its kind in the United States. The task force will recommend how each city agency should be accountable for using algorithms and other advanced computing techniques to make important decisions. As a first step toward this goal, we urge the task force to consider a framework structured around Algorithmic Impact Assessments (AIAs). Automated decision systems are here, and are already being integrated across many core social institutions, reshaping how our criminal justice system works via risk assessment algorithms and predictive policing systems, optimizing energy use in critical infrastructure through AI-driven resource allocation, and changing our educational system through new teacher evaluation tools and student-school matching algorithms. And these are merely what journalists, researchers, and the public record expose -- to date, no city in the US has explicitly mandated that its agencies disclose anything about the automated decision systems they have in place or are planning to use.