Title: Accountability of AI Under the Law: The Role of Explanation,
Abstract: The ubiquity of systems using artificial intelligence or "AI" has brought
increasing attention to how those systems should be regulated. The choice of
how to regulate AI systems will require care. AI systems have the potential to
synthesize large amounts of data, allowing for greater levels of
personalization and precision than ever before---applications range from
clinical decision support to autonomous driving and predictive policing. That
said, there exist legitimate concerns about the intentional and unintentional
negative consequences of AI systems. There are many ways to hold AI systems
accountable. In this work, we focus on one: explanation. Questions about a
legal right to explanation from AI systems was recently debated in the EU
General Data Protection Regulation, and thus thinking carefully about when and
how explanation from AI systems might improve accountability is timely. In this
work, we review contexts in which explanation is currently required under the
law, and then list the technical considerations that must be considered if we
desired AI systems that could provide kinds of explanations that are currently
required of humans.