decision-support system
Attributing Responsibility in AI-Induced Incidents: A Computational Reflective Equilibrium Framework for Accountability
The pervasive integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has introduced complex challenges in the responsibility and accountability in the event of incidents involving AI-enabled systems. The interconnectivity of these systems, ethical concerns of AI-induced incidents, coupled with uncertainties in AI technology and the absence of corresponding regulations, have made traditional responsibility attribution challenging. To this end, this work proposes a Computational Reflective Equilibrium (CRE) approach to establish a coherent and ethically acceptable responsibility attribution framework for all stakeholders. The computational approach provides a structured analysis that overcomes the limitations of conceptual approaches in dealing with dynamic and multifaceted scenarios, showcasing the framework's explainability, coherence, and adaptivity properties in the responsibility attribution process. We examine the pivotal role of the initial activation level associated with claims in equilibrium computation. Using an AI-assisted medical decision-support system as a case study, we illustrate how different initializations lead to diverse responsibility distributions. The framework offers valuable insights into accountability in AI-induced incidents, facilitating the development of a sustainable and resilient system through continuous monitoring, revision, and reflection.
Growing role for AI in fresh produce
There is a growing role for artificial intelligence within horticulture, experts have claimed โ but it is not the silver bullet many people think. Speaking at World of Fresh Ideas, Anthony Atlas, head of product and growth at agronomic machine-learning specialist ClimateAI, outlined the benefits and pitfalls of AI use on farms. Describing AI as "systems that generate predictions from past correlations โ a giant pattern-identification machine", Atlas said AI is only as good as the training it receives. He stressed that it is not easy to build, and that there isn't one single system that does everything, but instead each task is done by a separate model trained to perform a particular task. In horticulture, AI is being used as a decision-support system in climate and weather forecasting, imagery interpretation and precision automation of greenhouses. Benefits of AI include more complexity, nuance and power, the ability to cheaply automate repetitive tasks, and the fact it is more lightweight than a supercomputer.
Distributed Application of Guideline-Based Decision Support through Mobile Devices: Implementation and Evaluation
Shalom, Erez, Goldstein, Ayelet, Ariel, Elior, Sheinberger, Moshe, Jones, Valerie, Van Schooten, Boris, Shahar, Yuval
Traditionally Guideline(GL)based Decision Support Systems (DSSs) use a centralized infrastructure to generate recommendations to care providers. However, managing patients at home is preferable, reducing costs and empowering patients. We aimed to design, implement, and demonstrate the feasibility of a new architecture for a distributed DSS that provides patients with personalized, context-sensitive, evidence based guidance through their mobile device, and increases the robustness of the distributed application of the GL, while maintaining access to the patient longitudinal record and to an up to date evidence based GL repository. We have designed and implemented a novel projection and callback (PCB) model, in which small portions of the evidence based GL procedural knowledge, adapted to the patient preferences and to their current context, are projected from a central DSS server, to a local DSS on the patient mobile device that applies that knowledge. When appropriate, as defined by a temporal pattern within the projected plan, the local DSS calls back the central DSS, requesting further assistance, possibly another projection. Thus, the GL specification includes two levels: one for the central DSS, one for the local DSS. We successfully evaluated the PCB model within the MobiGuide EU project by managing Gestational Diabetes Mellitus patients in Spain, and Atrial Fibrillation patients in Italy. Significant differences exist between the two GL representations, suggesting additional ways to characterize GLs. Mean time between the central and local interactions was quite different for the two GLs: 3.95 days for gestational diabetes, 23.80 days for atrial fibrillation. Most interactions, 83%, were due to projections to the mDSS. Others were data notifications, mostly to change context. Robustness was demonstrated through successful recovery from multiple local DSS crashes.
The Ethical Implications of Shared Medical Decision Making without Providing Adequate Computational Support to the Care Provider and to the Patient
There is a clear need to involve patients in medical decisions. However, cognitive psychological research has highlighted the cognitive limitations of humans with respect to 1. Probabilistic assessment of the patient state and of potential outcomes of various decisions, 2. Elicitation of the patient utility function, and 3. Integration of the probabilistic knowledge and of patient preferences to determine the optimal strategy. Therefore, without adequate computational support, current shared decision models have severe ethical deficiencies. An informed consent model unfairly transfers the responsibility to a patient who does not have the necessary knowledge, nor the integration capability. A paternalistic model endows with exaggerated power a physician who might not be aware of the patient preferences, is prone to multiple cognitive biases, and whose computational integration capability is bounded. Recent progress in Artificial Intelligence suggests adding a third agent: a computer, in all deliberative medical decisions: Non emergency medical decisions in which more than one alternative exists, the patient preferences can be elicited, the therapeutic alternatives might be influenced by these preferences, medical knowledge exists regarding the likelihood of the decision outcomes, and there is sufficient decision time. Ethical physicians should exploit computational decision support technologies, neither making the decisions solely on their own, nor shirking their duty and shifting the responsibility to patients in the name of informed consent. The resulting three way (patient, care provider, computer) human machine model that we suggest emphasizes the patient preferences, the physician knowledge, and the computational integration of both aspects, does not diminish the physician role, but rather brings out the best in human and machine.
On the Identification of Fair Auditors to Evaluate Recommender Systems based on a Novel Non-Comparative Fairness Notion
Telukunta, Mukund, Nadendla, Venkata Sriram Siddhardh
Decision-support systems are information systems that offer support to people's decisions in various applications such as judiciary, real-estate and banking sectors. Lately, these support systems have been found to be discriminatory in the context of many practical deployments. In an attempt to evaluate and mitigate these biases, algorithmic fairness literature has been nurtured using notions of comparative justice, which relies primarily on comparing two/more individuals or groups within the society that is supported by such systems. However, such a fairness notion is not very useful in the identification of fair auditors who are hired to evaluate latent biases within decision-support systems. As a solution, we introduce a paradigm shift in algorithmic fairness via proposing a new fairness notion based on the principle of non-comparative justice. Assuming that the auditor makes fairness evaluations based on some (potentially unknown) desired properties of the decision-support system, the proposed fairness notion compares the system's outcome with that of the auditor's desired outcome. We show that the proposed fairness notion also provides guarantees in terms of comparative fairness notions by proving that any system can be deemed fair from the perspective of comparative fairness (e.g. individual fairness and statistical parity) if it is non-comparatively fair with respect to an auditor who has been deemed fair with respect to the same fairness notions. We also show that the converse holds true in the context of individual fairness. A brief discussion is also presented regarding how our fairness notion can be used to identify fair and reliable auditors, and how we can use them to quantify biases in decision-support systems.
The Terminology of Artificial Intelligence Part 2
Professor Edward Feigenbaum, while explaining the meaning of Al to a distinguished and perplexed scientific review panel for a Department of Defense AI application development program in the late 1970s commented, "If it works, it isn't AI." Because AI has been a subject of considerable interest, a number of suppliers and developers of software products have embraced the technology and offer products or demonstrations that "contain AI" It is possible that some of this labeling might be controversial among those who have worked in the field for some time. Since most AI appears as a software of some sort, many practitioners of conventional software development can recognize aspects of AI programs that could be accomplished with conventional technology. An industrial engineer replaced an electromechanical controller on a large machine with an electronic controller which included a CRT display. Upon being told the rudimentary aspects of AI technology, the industrial engineer suddenly exclaimed, "Wow, I've been doing AI all along!"
Understanding artificial intelligence ethics and safety
A remarkable time of human promise has been ushered in by the convergence of the ever-expanding availability of big data, the soaring speed and stretch of cloud computing platforms, and the advancement of increasingly sophisticated machine learning algorithms. Innovations in AI are already leaving a mark on government by improving the provision of essential social goods and services from healthcare, education, and transportation to food supply, energy, and environmental management. These bounties are likely just the start. The prospect that progress in AI will help government to confront some of its most urgent challenges is exciting, but legitimate worries abound. As with any new and rapidly evolving technology, a steep learning curve means that mistakes and miscalculations will be made and that both unanticipated and harmful impacts will occur. This guide, written for department and delivery leads in the UK public sector and adopted by the British Government in its publication, 'Using AI in the Public Sector,' identifies the potential harms caused by AI systems and proposes concrete, operationalisable measures to counteract them. It stresses that public sector organisations can anticipate and prevent these potential harms by stewarding a culture of responsible innovation and by putting in place governance processes that support the design and implementation of ethical, fair, and safe AI systems. It also highlights the need for algorithmically supported outcomes to be interpretable by their users and made understandable to decision subjects in clear, non-technical, and accessible ways. Finally, it builds out a vision of human-centred and context-sensitive implementation that gives a central role to communication, evidence-based reasoning, situational awareness, and moral justifiability.
Could Artificial Intelligence Overhaul Healthcare?
"Almost all fields of artificial intelligence have applications in healthcare."1 Medicine appears to have entered the era of data, and artificial intelligence (AI) will prove a valuable tool in the future, notably as an aid to diagnosis. Watson, the program developed by IBM, is the most emblematic example. Based on deep learning, the best known branch of artificial intelligence, it operates by layers, like a network of interconnected neurons spread between different strata for each calculation. The answer is only "produced" after a learning process which from the start associates symptoms and pathology.
Have we given artificial intelligence too much power too soon?
How will artificial intelligence systems change the way we live? This is a tough question: on one hand, AI tools are producing compelling advances in complex tasks, with dramatic improvements in energy consumption, audio processing, and leukemia detection. There is extraordinary potential to do much more in the future. On the other hand, AI systems are already making problematic judgements that are producing significant social, cultural, and economic impacts in people's everyday lives. AI and decision-support systems are embedded in a wide array of social institutions, from influencing who is released from jail to shaping the news we see.
Artificial intelligence is hard to see
Why we urgently need to measure AI's societal impacts How will artificial intelligence systems change the way we live? This is a tough question: on one hand, AI tools are producing compelling advances in complex tasks, with dramatic improvements in energy consumption, audio processing, and leukemia detection. There is extraordinary potential to do much more in the future. On the other hand, AI systems are already making problematic judgements that are producing significant social, cultural, and economic impacts in people's everyday lives. AI and decision-support systems are embedded in a wide array of social institutions, from influencing who is released from jail to shaping the news we see.