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AI & Society

Homework: Reflect on Readings

Background

You are assigned readings throughout this course. The readings cover subjects including design, AI and ethics. Each week, you are asked to reflect on your readings, to help you get the most out of the material, and be properly prepared for next week’s course. 

Learning Objectives

After completing this activity you will have gained a deeper understanding of this week’s readings, and will have summarized the core ideas in the papers in your own words, so that you can work with them in the course going forward.

Instructions

  • In your personal notebook, create an entry for each of the questions below, with an answer to the question in your own words.
  • Questions for König, P. D., & Wenzelburger, G. (2021)
    1. How would you define legitimacy?
    2. What is the source of legitimacy for human-made decisions?
    3. Why is there a “legitimacy gap” in automated-decision making?
    4. In what way might this legitimacy gap be addressed, according to the authors?
  • Questions for Alkhatib, A., & Bernstein, M. (2019)
    1. What is a street-level bureaucrat? By analogy, what is a street-level algorithm?
    2. Both street-level bureaucrats and street-level algorithms translate defined or expressed policies into “effective policies. But in each, the role of reflexivity is different. Can you describe the difference?
    3. When a street-level algorithm makes a mistake, one reason for this might be bias, bit there can also be another cause. What is this cause? And why can this problem not be solved by simply adding more training data?
    4. I addition to ensuring fairness, accountability and transparency, the authors claim some other mechanism is required to mitigate against street-level algorithms’ inability to “fill in the gaps”. What mechanism is this, and what requirements do the authors give for it?

Product

The result of this activity is a collection of notes, each with a summary of one idea in the assigned readings, described in your own words, captured in your personal notebook.

Follow-up

You will use the ideas generated in this way in next week’s session’s activities.