Responsible Tech MaxxingBeginnerFoundations60 sec

Accountability

Accountability is having a clearly identifiable person or organization responsible for a system's decisions, able to answer for its outcomes.

Mark as completed

Prerequisite: Affected community

What matters

Without clear accountability, a harmful outcome can be blamed vaguely on 'the algorithm', letting no actual person or organization be held responsible for it.

Example

A company being required to explain and take responsibility for a biased hiring model it deployed, rather than blaming the algorithm alone, reflects accountability.

Common misconception

Accountability is not satisfied simply by a system having a documented owner on paper; it requires that owner to genuinely be able to explain and answer for outcomes.

Recall question

What does accountability specifically require beyond having a name attached to a system?

Keywords and related concepts