Safe and Ethical AI (SEA) Platform Network · Linking Artificial Intelligence Principles (LAIP)

· 1.4 Interpretability

We are committed to partnering with others across government, private industry, academia, and civil society to find ways to mitigate bias, inequity, and other potential harms in automated decision making systems. Our approach to finding such solutions should be tailored to the unique risks presented by the specific context in which a particular system operates. In many contexts, we believe tools to enable greater interpretability will play an important role.

Principle: AI Policy Principles, Oct 24, 2017

Published by Information Technology Industry Council (ITI)

Related Principles

3. We enable businesses beyond bias

Bias can negatively impact AI software and, in turn, individuals and our customers. This is particularly the case when there is a risk of causing discrimination or of unjustly impacting underrepresented groups. We, therefore, require our technical teams to gain a deep understanding of the business problems they are trying to solve, and the data quality this demands. We seek to increase the diversity and interdisciplinarity of our teams, and we are investigating new technical methods for mitigating biases. We are also deeply committed to supporting our customers in building even more diverse businesses by leveraging AI to build products that help move business beyond bias.

Published by SAP in SAP's Guiding Principles for Artificial Intelligence, Sep 18, 2018

(Preamble)

New developments in Artificial Intelligence are transforming the world, from science and industry to government administration and finance. The rise of AI decision making also implicates fundamental rights of fairness, accountability, and transparency. Modern data analysis produces significant outcomes that have real life consequences for people in employment, housing, credit, commerce, and criminal sentencing. Many of these techniques are entirely opaque, leaving individuals unaware whether the decisions were accurate, fair, or even about them. We propose these Universal Guidelines to inform and improve the design and use of AI. The Guidelines are intended to maximize the benefits of AI, to minimize the risk, and to ensure the protection of human rights. These Guidelines should be incorporated into ethical standards, adopted in national law and international agreements, and built into the design of systems. We state clearly that the primary responsibility for AI systems must reside with those institutions that fund, develop, and deploy these systems.

Published by The Public Voice coalition, established by Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) in Universal Guidelines for Artificial Intelligence, Oct 23, 2018

Third principle: Understanding

AI enabled systems, and their outputs, must be appropriately understood by relevant individuals, with mechanisms to enable this understanding made an explicit part of system design. Effective and ethical decision making in Defence, from the frontline of combat to back office operations, is always underpinned by appropriate understanding of context by those making decisions. Defence personnel must have an appropriate, context specific understanding of the AI enabled systems they operate and work alongside. This level of understanding will naturally differ depending on the knowledge required to act ethically in a given role and with a given system. It may include an understanding of the general characteristics, benefits and limitations of AI systems. It may require knowledge of a system’s purposes and correct environment for use, including scenarios where a system should not be deployed or used. It may also demand an understanding of system performance and potential fail states. Our people must be suitably trained and competent to operate or understand these tools. To enable this understanding, we must be able to verify that our AI enabled systems work as intended. While the ‘black box’ nature of some machine learning systems means that they are difficult to fully explain, we must be able to audit either the systems or their outputs to a level that satisfies those who are duly and formally responsible and accountable. Mechanisms to interpret and understand our systems must be a crucial and explicit part of system design across the entire lifecycle. This requirement for context specific understanding based on technically understandable systems must also reach beyond the MOD, to commercial suppliers, allied forces and civilians. Whilst absolute transparency as to the workings of each AI enabled system is neither desirable nor practicable, public consent and collaboration depend on context specific shared understanding. What our systems do, how we intend to use them, and our processes for ensuring beneficial outcomes result from their use should be as transparent as possible, within the necessary constraints of the national security context.

Published by The Ministry of Defence (MOD), United Kingdom in Ethical Principles for AI in Defence, Jun 15, 2022

· Transparency and explainability

37. The transparency and explainability of AI systems are often essential preconditions to ensure the respect, protection and promotion of human rights, fundamental freedoms and ethical principles. Transparency is necessary for relevant national and international liability regimes to work effectively. A lack of transparency could also undermine the possibility of effectively challenging decisions based on outcomes produced by AI systems and may thereby infringe the right to a fair trial and effective remedy, and limits the areas in which these systems can be legally used. 38. While efforts need to be made to increase transparency and explainability of AI systems, including those with extra territorial impact, throughout their life cycle to support democratic governance, the level of transparency and explainability should always be appropriate to the context and impact, as there may be a need to balance between transparency and explainability and other principles such as privacy, safety and security. People should be fully informed when a decision is informed by or is made on the basis of AI algorithms, including when it affects their safety or human rights, and in those circumstances should have the opportunity to request explanatory information from the relevant AI actor or public sector institutions. In addition, individuals should be able to access the reasons for a decision affecting their rights and freedoms, and have the option of making submissions to a designated staff member of the private sector company or public sector institution able to review and correct the decision. AI actors should inform users when a product or service is provided directly or with the assistance of AI systems in a proper and timely manner. 39. From a socio technical lens, greater transparency contributes to more peaceful, just, democratic and inclusive societies. It allows for public scrutiny that can decrease corruption and discrimination, and can also help detect and prevent negative impacts on human rights. Transparency aims at providing appropriate information to the respective addressees to enable their understanding and foster trust. Specific to the AI system, transparency can enable people to understand how each stage of an AI system is put in place, appropriate to the context and sensitivity of the AI system. It may also include insight into factors that affect a specific prediction or decision, and whether or not appropriate assurances (such as safety or fairness measures) are in place. In cases of serious threats of adverse human rights impacts, transparency may also require the sharing of code or datasets. 40. Explainability refers to making intelligible and providing insight into the outcome of AI systems. The explainability of AI systems also refers to the understandability of the input, output and the functioning of each algorithmic building block and how it contributes to the outcome of the systems. Thus, explainability is closely related to transparency, as outcomes and ub processes leading to outcomes should aim to be understandable and traceable, appropriate to the context. AI actors should commit to ensuring that the algorithms developed are explainable. In the case of AI applications that impact the end user in a way that is not temporary, easily reversible or otherwise low risk, it should be ensured that the meaningful explanation is provided with any decision that resulted in the action taken in order for the outcome to be considered transparent. 41. Transparency and explainability relate closely to adequate responsibility and accountability measures, as well as to the trustworthiness of AI systems.

Published by The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in The Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, Nov 24, 2021

5 Ensure inclusiveness and equity

Inclusiveness requires that AI used in health care is designed to encourage the widest possible appropriate, equitable use and access, irrespective of age, gender, income, ability or other characteristics. Institutions (e.g. companies, regulatory agencies, health systems) should hire employees from diverse backgrounds, cultures and disciplines to develop, monitor and deploy AI. AI technologies should be designed by and evaluated with the active participation of those who are required to use the system or will be affected by it, including providers and patients, and such participants should be sufficiently diverse. Participation can also be improved by adopting open source software or making source codes publicly available. AI technology – like any other technology – should be shared as widely as possible. AI technologies should be available not only in HIC and for use in contexts and for needs that apply to high income settings but they should also be adaptable to the types of devices, telecommunications infrastructure and data transfer capacity in LMIC. AI developers and vendors should also consider the diversity of languages, ability and forms of communication around the world to avoid barriers to use. Industry and governments should strive to ensure that the “digital divide” within and between countries is not widened and ensure equitable access to novel AI technologies. AI technologies should not be biased. Bias is a threat to inclusiveness and equity because it represents a departure, often arbitrary, from equal treatment. For example, a system designed to diagnose cancerous skin lesions that is trained with data on one skin colour may not generate accurate results for patients with a different skin colour, increasing the risk to their health. Unintended biases that may emerge with AI should be avoided or identified and mitigated. AI developers should be aware of the possible biases in their design, implementation and use and the potential harm that biases can cause to individuals and society. These parties also have a duty to address potential bias and avoid introducing or exacerbating health care disparities, including when testing or deploying new AI technologies in vulnerable populations. AI developers should ensure that AI data, and especially training data, do not include sampling bias and are therefore accurate, complete and diverse. If a particular racial or ethnic minority (or other group) is underrepresented in a dataset, oversampling of that group relative to its population size may be necessary to ensure that an AI technology achieves the same quality of results in that population as in better represented groups. AI technologies should minimize inevitable power disparities between providers and patients or between companies that create and deploy AI technologies and those that use or rely on them. Public sector agencies should have control over the data collectedby private health care providers, and their shared responsibilities should be defined and respected. Everyone – patients, health care providers and health care systems – should be able to benefit from an AI technology and not just the technology providers. AI technologies should be accompanied by means to provide patients with knowledge and skills to better understand their health status and to communicate effectively with health care providers. Future health literacy should include an element of information technology literacy. The effects of use of AI technologies must be monitored and evaluated, including disproportionate effects on specific groups of people when they mirror or exacerbate existing forms of bias and discrimination. Special provision should be made to protect the rights and welfare of vulnerable persons, with mechanisms for redress if such bias and discrimination emerges or is alleged.

Published by World Health Organization (WHO) in Key ethical principles for use of artificial intelligence for health, Jun 28, 2021