Focus on the Process: Formulating AI Ethics Principles More Responsibly

Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems have been involved in numerous scandals in recent years. For instance, take the COMPAS recidivism algorithm. The algorithm evaluated the likelihood that defendants will commit another crime in the future. It was widely used in the US criminal justice system to inform decisions about who can be set free at all stages of the process. In 2016, ProPublica exposed that COMPAS's predictions were biased: its mistakes favored white over black defendants. Black defendants were twice as likely to be labeled as high risk to reoffend but not actually reoffend.