Transparency

Regulation can be used to improve the ethical standards of automated decision-making. While existing legislation governs areas of practice such as safety regulation and consumer protection, this legislation is not focused on automated decision-making. The Australian government can modify regulation to include automated decision-making, however a key difference between human-driven and automated decision-making is the lack of transparency inherent in many state-of-the-art artificial intelligence techniques and the data which they collect. This makes it difficult to identify not only bias and discrimination, but also whether decision-making tools are fit for purpose, ethical and safe.

The Transparency research theme pursues questions such as: 'How can we audit automated decision-making models when even their creators cannot fully understand their complexity?' and 'What safeguards can be used to sufficiently maintain the confidentiality of valuable commercial information, as well as the privacy of individuals and groups?'