How to Build Accountability into Your AI

When it comes to managing artificial intelligence, there is no shortage of principles and concepts aiming to support fair and responsible use. But organizations and their leaders are often left scratching their heads when facing hard questions about how to responsibly manage and deploy AI systems today. That's why, at the U.S. Government Accountability Office, we've recently developed the federal government's first framework to help assure accountability and responsible use of AI systems. The framework defines the basic conditions for accountability throughout the entire AI life cycle -- from design and development to deployment and monitoring. It also lays out specific questions to ask, and audit procedures to use, when assessing AI systems along the following four dimensions: 1) governance, 2) data, 3) performance, and 4) monitoring.