The big question ever since: How do we solve this problem?
And there is a growing field of private auditing firms that purport to do just that.
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Articles inFast Company,VentureBeat, andMIT Technology Reviewcalled out the company for mischaracterizing the audit.
[Read:How do you build a pet-friendly gadget?
What is algorithmic auditing how does it work?
Good question its a pretty undefined field.
Companies may also have their own internal auditing teams that look at algorithms before theyre released to the public.
Thats the most common reason I dont get a job.
For those that do hire auditors, there are no standards for what an audit should entail.
A seal of approval from one auditor could mean much more scrutiny than that from another.
And tech companies arent always forthcoming, even with the auditors they hire, some auditors say.
Chowdhury said she has declined audits when companies demanded she allows them to review them before public release.
ONeil said she could not comment on the HireVue audit.
The framework we would love to get adopted is theres no such thing as good enough.
There are always ways to make things fairer.
So some prerelease audits will also provide continuous monitoring, though its not common.
The practice is gaining momentum among banks and health care companies, OSullivan said.
OSullivans monitoring company installs a dashboard that looks for anomalies in algorithms as they are being used inreal-time.
Do companies fix their algorithms after an Audit?
There are no guarantee companies will address the issues raised in an audit.
you might have a quality audit and still not get accountability from the company, said Raji.
But it can be hard to create buzz around algorithmic accountability, she said.
Its a bit sad that we rely so much on public outcry, Raji said.
If the public doesnt understand it, there is no fine, there are no legal repercussions.
And it makes it very frustrating.
So what can be done to improve algorithmic auditing?
If we saw the disparate impact, then that algorithm wouldnt be released to the market.
The bill never made it to a vote.
Its my view we need to work on both tracks.
This article wasoriginally published on The Markupand was republished under theCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivativeslicense.
