Safe and Ethical AI (SEA) Platform Network · Linking Artificial Intelligence Principles (LAIP)

2. Principle of transparency

Developers should pay attention to the verifiability of inputs outputs of AI systems and the explainability of their judgments. [Comment] AI systems which are supposed to be subject to this principle are such ones that might affect the life, body, freedom, privacy, or property of users or third parties. It is desirable that developers pay attention to the verifiability of the inputs and outputs of AI systems as well as the explainability of the judgment of AI systems within a reasonable scope in light of the characteristics of the technologies to be adopted and their use, so as to obtain the understanding and trust of the society including users of AI systems. [Note] Note that this principle is not intended to ask developers to disclose algorithms, source codes, or learning data. In interpreting this principle, consideration to privacy and trade secrets is also required.

Principle: AI R&D Principles, Jul 28, 2017

Published by Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), the Government of Japan

Related Principles

1. Transparency and Explainability

Transparency refers to providing disclosure on when an AI system is being used and the involvement of an AI system in decision making, what kind of data it uses, and its purpose. By disclosing to individuals that AI is used in the system, individuals will become aware and can make an informed choice of whether to use the AIenabled system. Explainability is the ability to communicate the reasoning behind an AI system’s decision in a way that is understandable to a range of people, as it is not always clear how an AI system has arrived at a conclusion. This allows individuals to know the factors contributing to the AI system’s recommendation. In order to build public trust in AI, it is important to ensure that users are aware of the use of AI technology and understand how information from their interaction is used and how the AI system makes its decisions using the information provided. In line with the principle of transparency, deployers have a responsibility to clearly disclose the implementation of an AI system to stakeholders and foster general awareness of the AI system being used. With the increasing use of AI in many businesses and industries, the public is becoming more aware and interested in knowing when they are interacting with AI systems. Knowing when and how AI systems interact with users is also important in helping users discern the potential harm of interacting with an AI system that is not behaving as intended. In the past, AI algorithms have been found to discriminate against female job applicants and have failed to accurately recognise the faces of dark skinned women. It is important for users to be aware of the expected behaviour of the AI systems so they can make more informed decisions about the potential harm of interacting with AI systems. An example of transparency in an AI enabled ecommerce platform is informing users that their purchase history is used by the platform’s recommendation algorithm to identify similar products and display them on the users’ feeds. In line with the principle of explainability, developers and deployers designing, developing, and deploying AI systems should also strive to foster general understanding among users of how such systems work with simple and easy to understand explanations on how the AI system makes decisions. Understanding how AI systems work will help humans know when to trust its decisions. Explanations can have varying degrees of complexity, ranging from a simple text explanation of which factors more significantly affected the decisionmaking process to displaying a heatmap over the relevant text or on the area of an image that led to the system’s decision. For example, when an AI system is used to predict the likelihood of cardiac arrest in patients, explainability can be implemented by informing medical professionals of the most significant factors (e.g., age, blood pressure, etc.) that influenced the AI system’s decision so that they can subsequently make informed decisions on their own. Where “black box” models are deployed, rendering it difficult, if not impossible to provide explanations as to the workings of the AI system, outcome based explanations, with a focus on explaining the impact of decisionmaking or results flowing from the AI system may be relied on. Alternatively, deployers may also consider focusing on aspects relating to the quality of the AI system or preparing information that could build user confidence in the outcomes of an AI system’s processing behaviour. Some of these measures are: • Documenting the repeatability of results produced by the AI system. Some practices to demonstrate repeatability include conducting repeatability assessments to ensure deployments in live environments are repeatable and performing counterfactual fairness testing to ensure that the AI system’s decisions are the same in both the real world and in the counterfactual world. Repeatability refers to the ability of the system to consistently obtain the same results, given the same scenario. Repeatability often applies within the same environment, with the same data and the same computational conditions. • Ensuring traceability by building an audit trail to document the AI system development and decisionmaking process, implementing a black box recorder that captures all input data streams, or storing data appropriately to avoid degradation and alteration. • Facilitating auditability by keeping a comprehensive record of data provenance, procurement, preprocessing, lineage, storage, and security. Such information can also be centralised digitally in a process log to increase capacity to cater the presentation of results to different tiers of stakeholders with different interests and levels of expertise. Deployers should, however, note that auditability does not necessarily entail making certain confidential information about business models or intellectual property related to the AI system publicly available. A risk based approach can be taken towards identifying the subset of AI enabled features in the AI system for which implemented auditability is necessary to align with regulatory requirements or industry practices. • Using AI Model Cards, which are short documents accompanying trained machine learning models that disclose the context in which models are intended to be used, details of the performance evaluation procedures, and other relevant information. In cases where AI systems are procured directly from developers, deployers will have to work together with these developers to achieve transparency. More on this will be covered in later sections of the Guide.

Published by ASEAN in ASEAN Guide on AI Governance and Ethics, 2024

4. Principle of safety

Developers should take it into consideration that AI systems will not harm the life, body, or property of users or third parties through actuators or other devices. [Comment] AI systems which are supposed to be subject to this principle are such ones that might harm the life, body, or property of users or third parties through actuators or other devices. It is encouraged that developers refer to relevant international standards and pay attention to the followings, with particular consideration of the possibility that outputs or programs might change as a result of learning or other methods of AI systems: ● To make efforts to conduct verification and validation in advance in order to assess and mitigate the risks related to the safety of the AI systems. ● To make efforts to implement measures, throughout the development stage of AI systems to the extent possible in light of the characteristics of the technologies to be adopted, to contribute to the intrinsic safety (reduction of essential risk factors such as kinetic energy of actuators) and the functional safety (mitigation of risks by operation of additional control devices such as automatic braking) when AI systems work with actuators or other devices. And ● To make efforts to explain the designers’ intent of AI systems and the reasons for it to stakeholders such as users, when developing AI systems to be used for making judgments regarding the safety of life, body, or property of users and third parties (for example, such judgments that prioritizes life, body, property to be protected at the time of an accident of a robot equipped with AI).

Published by Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), the Government of Japan in AI R&D Principles, Jul 28, 2017

9. Principle of transparency

AI service providers and business users should pay attention to the verifiability of inputs outputs of AI systems or AI services and the explainability of their judgments. Note: This principle is not intended to ask for the disclosure of algorithm, source code, or learning data. In interpreting this principle, privacy of individuals and trade secrets of enterprises are also taken into account. [Main points to discuss] A) Recording and preserving the inputs outputs of AI In order to ensure the verifiability of the input and output of AI, AI service providers and business users may be expected to record and preserve the inputs and outputs. In light of the characteristics of the technologies to be used and their usage, in what cases and to what extent are the inputs and outputs expected to be recorded and preserved? For example, in the case of using AI in fields where AI systems might harm the life, body, or property, such as the field of autonomous driving, the inputs and outputs of AI may be expected to be recorded and preserved to the extent whch is necessary for investigating the causes of accidents and preventing the recurrence of such accidents. B) Ensuring explainability AI service providers and business users may be expected to ensure explainability on the judgments of AI. In light of the characteristics of the technologies to be used and their usage, in what cases and to what extent is explainability expected to be ensured? Especially in the case of using AI in fields where the judgments of AI might have significant influences on individual rights and interests, such as the fields of medical care, personnel evaluation and recruitment and financing, explainability on the judgments of AI may be expected to be ensured. (For example, we have to pay attention to the current situation where deep learning has high prediction accuracy, but it is difficult to explain its judgment.)

Published by Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), the Government of Japan in Draft AI Utilization Principles, Jul 17, 2018

Principle 6 – Transparency & Explainability

The transparency and explainability principle is crucial for building and maintaining trust in AI systems and technologies. AI systems must be built with a high level of clarity and explainability as well as features to track the stages of automated decision making, particularly those that may lead to detrimental effects on data subjects. It follows that data, algorithms, capabilities, processes, and purpose of the AI system need to be transparent and communicated as well as explainable to those who are directly and indirectly affected. The degree to which the system is traceable, auditable, transparent, and explainable is dependent on the context and purpose of the AI system and the severity of the outcomes that may result from the technology. AI systems and their designers should be able to justify how the rationale behind their design, practices, processes, algorithms, and decisions or behaviors are ethically permissible, nondiscriminatory, and nonharmful to the public.

Published by SDAIA in AI Ethics Principles, Sept 14, 2022

· Transparency and explainability

37. The transparency and explainability of AI systems are often essential preconditions to ensure the respect, protection and promotion of human rights, fundamental freedoms and ethical principles. Transparency is necessary for relevant national and international liability regimes to work effectively. A lack of transparency could also undermine the possibility of effectively challenging decisions based on outcomes produced by AI systems and may thereby infringe the right to a fair trial and effective remedy, and limits the areas in which these systems can be legally used. 38. While efforts need to be made to increase transparency and explainability of AI systems, including those with extra territorial impact, throughout their life cycle to support democratic governance, the level of transparency and explainability should always be appropriate to the context and impact, as there may be a need to balance between transparency and explainability and other principles such as privacy, safety and security. People should be fully informed when a decision is informed by or is made on the basis of AI algorithms, including when it affects their safety or human rights, and in those circumstances should have the opportunity to request explanatory information from the relevant AI actor or public sector institutions. In addition, individuals should be able to access the reasons for a decision affecting their rights and freedoms, and have the option of making submissions to a designated staff member of the private sector company or public sector institution able to review and correct the decision. AI actors should inform users when a product or service is provided directly or with the assistance of AI systems in a proper and timely manner. 39. From a socio technical lens, greater transparency contributes to more peaceful, just, democratic and inclusive societies. It allows for public scrutiny that can decrease corruption and discrimination, and can also help detect and prevent negative impacts on human rights. Transparency aims at providing appropriate information to the respective addressees to enable their understanding and foster trust. Specific to the AI system, transparency can enable people to understand how each stage of an AI system is put in place, appropriate to the context and sensitivity of the AI system. It may also include insight into factors that affect a specific prediction or decision, and whether or not appropriate assurances (such as safety or fairness measures) are in place. In cases of serious threats of adverse human rights impacts, transparency may also require the sharing of code or datasets. 40. Explainability refers to making intelligible and providing insight into the outcome of AI systems. The explainability of AI systems also refers to the understandability of the input, output and the functioning of each algorithmic building block and how it contributes to the outcome of the systems. Thus, explainability is closely related to transparency, as outcomes and ub processes leading to outcomes should aim to be understandable and traceable, appropriate to the context. AI actors should commit to ensuring that the algorithms developed are explainable. In the case of AI applications that impact the end user in a way that is not temporary, easily reversible or otherwise low risk, it should be ensured that the meaningful explanation is provided with any decision that resulted in the action taken in order for the outcome to be considered transparent. 41. Transparency and explainability relate closely to adequate responsibility and accountability measures, as well as to the trustworthiness of AI systems.

Published by The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in The Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, Nov 24, 2021