• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, October 17, 2022

The White House Office of Science has come out with a Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights.

The goal is to help guide the design, development and deployment of artificial intelligence and other automated systems. 

It might be easier to say what the blueprint is than what it isn’t. The White House is offering these safeguards:

• Safe and Effective Systems: You should be protected from unsafe or ineffective systems.
• Algorithmic Discrimination Protections: You should not face discrimination by algorithms and systems should be used and designed in an equitable way.
• Data Privacy: You should be protected from abusive data practices via built-in protections and you should have agency over how data about you is used.
• Notice and Explanation: You should know when an automated system is being used and understand how and why it contributes to outcomes that impact you.
• Human Alternatives, Consideration, and Fallback: You should be able to opt out, where appropriate, and have access to a person who can quickly consider and remedy problems you encounter.
• Project managers leading the development of new AI products can use the framework as a checklist and incorporate safeguards into the design process.
• Policymakers can codify these measures into law or use the framework and its technical companion to help develop specific guidance on the use of automated systems within a sector.
• Parents can use the framework as a set of questions to ask school administrators about what protections exist for their children.
• Workers can use the framework to advocate for better workplace conditions.

Expressed more broadly, this blueprint is for “the older Americans denied critical health benefits because of an algorithm change. The student erroneously accused of cheating by AI-enabled video surveillance. The fathers wrongfully arrested because of facial recognition technology. The Black Americans blocked from a kidney transplant after an AI assumed they were at lesser risk for kidney disease.” 

The contributors include: 

• Dr. Alondra Nelson, Deputy Assistant to the President and OSTP Deputy Director for Science and Society
• Dr. Sorelle Friedler, Assistant Director for Data and Democracy
• Ami Fields-Meyer, Chief of Staff, OSTP Science and Society Division