Democratic Equality in the age of algorithms: algorithmic discrimination and algorithmic audits

Organized by:

• Universidad Austral, proyecto FONDECYT de Iniciación 11220370 «Discriminación algorítmica en el Estado de Bienestar Digital y en las plataformas digitales de trabajo»
• Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Proyecto Algoritmos Éticos (IDB Lab ATN/ME-18240-CH)

In the age of algorithms, there has been much debate about the potential impact of digital technologies on human rights. Although the initial focus was the negative impact of digital technologies on privacy, security and broader issues of data protection, recent debates have broadened towards concern with other human rights, such as equality and non-discrimination or freedom of speech. Currently, the global debate on AI regulation is somehow stagnated: Europe has taken a while to enact a binding AI Directive; the US is pushing its federal agencies to adopt a slow and progressive sectoral regulation to these issues; and China started to enact specific regulatory frameworks for technologies that do not impinge on their political power. To move this debate one step forward, we need to illustrate the way in which digital technologies generate harms to human rights or reproduce power asymmetries. Moreover, we need to reflect on the institutional arrangements to prevent/repair those harms and reduce power asymmetries through a repertoire of processes, remedies and reparations. This normative stance may be highlighted by the ideals of Democratic Equality, a conception of justice that focuses first on how we can relate as equals rather than on what is the currency of distributive justice. According to this conception of justice, the normative questions entail addressing broader issues of social and political power, which are difficult to assess in the age of algorithmic society. Allegedly, algorithmic decision-making presents itself as free from human bias and premised on impartial procedures.

In this academic seminar, we will host two presentations by keynote speakers. First, Raphaele Xenidis, Assistant Professor in European Law of Science Po Law School will address the way in which discrimination is produced and reproduced by algorithmic decision-making and the potential of EU anti-discrimination law to address this problem. Her work investigates on how to rethink discrimination law to address the systemic ways in which algorithmic rationality entrenches inequality. It proposes an alternative legal test revolving around the notion of systemic discrimination that conceptualises algorithmic discrimination as a form of negligence and that requires reasonable prevention of algorithmic harms through positive action. Secondly, Daniel Howden, Managing Editor from Lighthouse Reports will describe the methodology used by journalists that are trying to hold algorithmic decision-making in government to account. They have used freedom of information laws and the courts to force disclosure of the technical details of systems in Europe and attempt to independently assess the claims of accuracy and fairness being made on their behalf. They collaborate with academics from different countries that have reviewed their experimental design and methodology.

We hope you can join us for this academic seminar, on December 6th from 9 am to 12 pm at Adolfo Ibáñez University (Av. Diagonal Las Torres, 2640, Peñalolén. Edificio C posgrado, sala 307 C).

Seminar Agenda 

Please register in the following link https://forms.gle/ZnmxVzGRYNpJCEKA9