Human Rights and Algorithmic Impact Assessment for Predictive Policing

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) constitutes a major form of scientific and technological progress. For the first time in human history, it is possible to create autonomous systems capable of performing complex tasks, such as processing large quantities of information, calculating and predicting, learning and adapting responses to changing situations, and recognizing and classifying objects. For instance, algorithms, or so-called Algorithmic Decision Systems (ADS), are increasingly involved in systems used to support decision-making in many fields, such as child welfare, criminal justice, school assignment, teacher evaluation, fire risk assessment, homelessness prioritization, Medicaid benefit, immigration decision systems or risk assessment, and predictive policing, among other things. An Automated Decision(-making/-support) System (ADS) is a system that uses automated reasoning to facilitate or replace a decision-making process that would otherwise be performed by humans. These systems rely on the analysis of large amounts of data from which they derive useful information to make