Management-Based Oversight of the Automated State: Emerging Standards for AI Impact Assessment and Auditing in the Public Sector

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the role for management-based governance of uses of artificial intelligence (AI) by government authorities. Because these uses can vary widely, as can their purposes, contexts, designs, and impacts, the responsible use of AI almost never can depend on compliance with a set of formulaic rules governing specific actions that agencies must take or outcomes to be avoided. Rather, AI governance will depend on adherence to a set of management-based standards that call for measures involving testing, validation, and monitoring throughout the lifecycle of AI design, development, and deployment. These auditing and impact assessment measures will necessarily play a key role in helping to ensure that AI uses accord with principles of responsible AI. Already, governmental auditors from around the world have developed a series of frameworks and standards for auditing governmental use of AI. This chapter describes and compares the main elements of such an approach by reference to standards issued in Canada, Europe, New Zealand, and the United States. It offers a synthesis of the main elements of AI impact assessment in the public sector, explains why such a management-based approach fits better than alternative governance strategies to the characteristics of AI, and explores what is realistic to expect from the use of impact assessment and auditing as a tool for governing public sector AI.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, AI, algorithmic auditing, government agencies, public sector, management-based approach, AI governance, management-based standards, administrative law