SHOULD BIOMETRIC ENGINEERS BE ACCOUNTABLE

FOR THE ALGORITHMS THAT THEY WRITE?

ON KNIVES, ETHICS & ALGORITHMS

EMILIO MORDINI

Presentation delivered at the XI International

Summer School on Biometrics Alghero June 13,
2014

ACCOUNTABILITY
A moral agent should
be held accountable
for the consequences
of her/his actions or
projects.

ACCOUNTABILITY IN HETEROGENEOUS
ORGANISATIONS
Contemporary world is
increasingly made up by
heterogeneous
organisations in which
individuals and
technological devices
amalgamate and perform
activities side by side.
This allows playing a new
version of the old blame
avoidance game

ARE YOU ACCOUNTABLE FOR YOUR

ALGORITHMS?

It is not me! Its

the algorithm!

THE KNIFE ARGUMENT

T H E S TA N D A R D A R G U M E N T

STRUCTURE OF THE ARGUMENT

Claiming that writers of
algorithms should be
held accountable for the
consequences that the
use of such algorithms
may have, is it
comparable to holding
the manufacturer of a
knife accountable for
the death of anyone
killed by that knife.

IN OTHER WORDS
If you consider an
engineer responsible
for the usage of the
technology that he
created, then you
should consider
responsible the knife
producer for all
homicides made by
using a knife

A VERY STRONG ARGUMENT?

MMH. LETS SEE

HOW MANY KNIVES EXIST?

ALTHOUGH YOU COULD CALL THEM BOTH KNIVES, THESE

TWO ITEMS ARE NOT THE SAME ITEM, ARE THEY?

MILITARY KNIVES

ANCIENT KNIVES

CAMPING KNIVES

KITCHEN KNIVES

COMBAT KNIVES

COUNTRY KNIVES

CUTTERS AND RETRACTABLE

HIGH TECH KNIVES

HUNTING KNIVES

MASKED KNIVES

UNUSUAL KNIVES

POCKET KNIVES

PLASTIC KNIVES

THROWING KNIVES

TABLE KNIVES

THE KNIFE DOES NOT EXIST

In real life there is not a
knife but there are
many different items
that we call collectively
knives because they
share some properties,
but in the same while
they also show very
different features,
including their capacity
for harming

OF COURSE EVERYTHING
COULD BE USED TO KILL
LETS SEE SOME EXAMPLES

SHOOES

JAR OF PICKELS

SPATULA

TOILET TANK LID

PEN

SPOON

BOWLING BALL

HOUSE BRICK

 AND EVEN

BUT
D E S I G N I S S T I L L I M P O R TA N T A S K N I F E H I S T O R Y S H O W S

1630 AD
Cardinal Richelieu got irritated by
the behavior of men at the dining
tables, stabbing their knives
(which doubled as table cutlery)
into chunks of meat and other
food, or into the table, and by the
their habit of using the sharp
knives to pick their teeth at the
end of the meal. To put an end to
this behavior, he ordered his
kitchen staff to file off the sharp
points of all the house knifes. Soon
this new style of rounded table
knife became a trendy dinner
accessory.

1669 AD
King Louis XIV of France,
the Sun King (le RoiSoleil), banned pointed
knives at the table and
as weapons to try put
an end to the culture of
violence of the time. This
further cemented the
position of the roundended table knife as
preferred form of cutlery.

IN CONCLUSION
T H E K N I F E A R G U M E N T I S FA L L A C I O U S
B E C AU S E

THESE TWO ITEMS ARE NOT THE SAME

AND THE SAME HOLDS TRUE WITH

ALGORITHMS
Gesture Recognition

Euthanasia Decision

TAKE FOR INSTANCE SOFT BIOMETRICS

SKIN COLOUR IS ONE ELEMENT USED FOR

DETERMINING ETHNICITY THROUGH SOFT BIOMETRICS

THER ARE AT LEAST 36 DIFFERENT SKIN

COLOURS IN THE HUMAN SPECIES

THESE TWO SKINS ARE NOT THE SAME COLOUR

ALTHOUGH YOU MAY CALL THEM BOTH BLACK

THESE TWO SKINS ARE NOT THE SAME COLOUR

ALTHOUGH YOU MAY CALL THEM BOTH WHITE

IF YOUR ALGORITHMS CONSIDER ONLY 5

SKIN COLOURS, THEN

THE BLAME FOR THIS WILL BE ALSO ON YOU

OF COURSE YOU COULD ACHIEVE

RACISM BY OTHER MEANS AS WELL

YET THIS DOES NOT CHANGE THE FACT

THAT

Technologies provide
values that follow from
properties of the
technology itself

OF COURSE

No one could predict

how a technological
artifact will be used
in real life

YET TECHNOLOGY DESIGN IS NOT

VALUE-FREE

The way in which a

technology is used is
embedded in its
design

FOR INSTANCE
A racist engineer will
unvoidably design
technologies which
will be more prone to
be used for racist
purposes

KEEP CONTROL OF YOUR TECHNOLOGY

The more an engineer

is unaware of her value
mindset, the more her
technology will be out
of her control

BE AWARE OF YOUR VALUES

It is an ethical
obligation for those
who write computer
algorithms to be aware
of their value bias.

FINAL RECOMMENDATION
And above all,
please, please,
please, never use
any longer the
metaphor of knife to
argue that computer
scientists should not
be considered ethically
accountable for their
algorithms

THANKS FOR YOUR

ATTENTION
emilio.mordini@rtexpert.com