Joshua A. Kroll writes for Brookings: Work long performed by human decision-makers or organizations increasingly happens via computerized automation. This shift creates new gaps within the governance structures that manage the correctness, fairness, and power dynamics of important decision processes. When existing governance systems are unequipped to handle the speed, scale, and sophistication of these new automated systems, any biased, unintended, or incorrect outcomes can go unnoticed or be difficult to correct even when observed. In this article, I examine what drives these gaps by focusing on why the nature of artificial intelligence (AI) creates inherent, fundamental barriers to governance and accountability within systems that rely on automation. The design of automation in systems is not only a technical question for engineers and implementers, but a governance question for policymakers and requirements holders. If system governance acknowledges and responds to the tendencies in AI to create and reinforce inequality, automated systems should be built to support human values as a strategy for limiting harms such as bias, reduction of individual agency, or the inability to redress harmful outcomes.
see the Brookings website: Why AI is just automation (brookings.edu)
