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International Journal of Crowd Science 2023, 7(1): 32-39 https://doi.org/10.26599/IJCS.2022.9100033
Open Access | Issue | Published: 31 March 2023

Fairness in Design: A Framework for Facilitating Ethical Artificial Intelligence Designs

Show Author's Information Jiehuang Zhang1,2( ),  Ying Shu1,  Han Yu1
School of Computer Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798, Singapore
Alibaba-NTU Singapore Joint Research Institute, Singapore 637335, Singapore
Keywords:
complex system, fairness, design methodology, digital transformation, ethical Artificial Intelligence (AI), software design
Cite this article:
Zhang J, Shu Y, Yu H. Fairness in Design: A Framework for Facilitating Ethical Artificial Intelligence Designs. International Journal of Crowd Science, 2023, 7(1): 32-39. https://doi.org/10.26599/IJCS.2022.9100033
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Abstract Full text About this article

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Digital Transformation (DT) technologies become increasingly ubiquitous in modern society, the flaws in their designs are starting to attract attention. AI models have been shown to be susceptible to biases in the training data, especially against underrepresented groups. Although an increasing call for AI solution designers to take fairness into account, the field lacks a design methodology to help AI design teams of members from different backgrounds brainstorm and surface potential fairness issues during the design stage. To address this problem, we propose the Fairness in Design (FID) framework to help AI software designers surface and explore complex fairness-related issues, that otherwise can be overlooked. We explore literature in the field of fairness in AI to narrow down the field into ten major fairness principles, which assist designers in brainstorming around metrics and guide thinking processes about fairness. FID facilitates discussions among design team members, through a game-like approach that is based on a set of prompt cards, to identify and discuss potential concerns from the perspective of various stakeholders. Extensive user studies show that FID is effective at assisting participants in making better decisions about fairness, especially complex issues that involve algorithmic decisions. It has also been found to decrease the barrier of entry for software teams, in terms of the pre-requisite knowledge about fairness, to address fairness issues so that they can make more appropriate related design decisions. The FID methodological framework contributes a novel toolkit to aid in the design and conception process of AI systems, decrease barriers to entry, and assist critical thinking around complex issues surrounding algorithmic systems. The framework is integrated into a step-by-step card game for AI system designers to employ during the design and conception stage of the life-cycle process. FID is a unique decision support framework for software teams interested to create fairness-aware AI solutions.


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About this article

Fairness in Design: A Framework for Facilitating Ethical Artificial Intelligence Designs

Show Author's information Jiehuang Zhang1,2( ), Ying Shu1, Han Yu1
School of Computer Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798, Singapore
Alibaba-NTU Singapore Joint Research Institute, Singapore 637335, Singapore

Abstract

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Digital Transformation (DT) technologies become increasingly ubiquitous in modern society, the flaws in their designs are starting to attract attention. AI models have been shown to be susceptible to biases in the training data, especially against underrepresented groups. Although an increasing call for AI solution designers to take fairness into account, the field lacks a design methodology to help AI design teams of members from different backgrounds brainstorm and surface potential fairness issues during the design stage. To address this problem, we propose the Fairness in Design (FID) framework to help AI software designers surface and explore complex fairness-related issues, that otherwise can be overlooked. We explore literature in the field of fairness in AI to narrow down the field into ten major fairness principles, which assist designers in brainstorming around metrics and guide thinking processes about fairness. FID facilitates discussions among design team members, through a game-like approach that is based on a set of prompt cards, to identify and discuss potential concerns from the perspective of various stakeholders. Extensive user studies show that FID is effective at assisting participants in making better decisions about fairness, especially complex issues that involve algorithmic decisions. It has also been found to decrease the barrier of entry for software teams, in terms of the pre-requisite knowledge about fairness, to address fairness issues so that they can make more appropriate related design decisions. The FID methodological framework contributes a novel toolkit to aid in the design and conception process of AI systems, decrease barriers to entry, and assist critical thinking around complex issues surrounding algorithmic systems. The framework is integrated into a step-by-step card game for AI system designers to employ during the design and conception stage of the life-cycle process. FID is a unique decision support framework for software teams interested to create fairness-aware AI solutions.

Keywords: complex system, fairness, design methodology, digital transformation, ethical Artificial Intelligence (AI), software design

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Received: 04 May 2022
Revised: 27 September 2022
Accepted: 28 September 2022
Published: 31 March 2023
Issue date: March 2023

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© The author(s) 2023

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgment

This work was supported in part by Nanyang Technological University, Nanyang Assistant Professorship (NAP); Alibaba Group through Alibaba Innovative Research (AIR) Program and Alibaba-NTU Singapore Joint Research Institute (JRI) (No. Alibaba-NTU-AIR2019B1), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; the National Research Foundation, Singapore under its AI Singapore Programme (AISG Award) (No. AISG2-RP-2020-019); the RIE 2020 Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering (AME) Programmatic Fund (No. A20G8b0102), Singapore; the Joint SDU-NTU Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research (C-FAIR); and Future Communications Research and Development Programme (No. FCP-NTU-RG-2021-014). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of the National Research Foundation, Singapore.

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The articles published in this open access journal are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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