Algo.Rules

The chal­lenge 

Every day, algo­rith­mic sys­tems make deci­sions for and about us, for exam­ple by fil­ter­ing job appli­ca­tions and diag­nos­ing ill­ness­es, ana­lyz­ing cred­it­wor­thi­ness or sug­gest­ing patrols to the police. In other words, they are increas­ing­ly used in areas that have a direct or indi­rect, but always sig­nif­i­cant influ­ence on soci­ety or the lives of peo­ple in it — one that goes far beyond the reach of mere pock­et cal­cu­la­tors. This is why we as a soci­ety must dis­cuss how the oppor­tu­ni­ties offered to all of us by use of this tech­nol­o­gy can be made to out­weigh the risks.

Our approach 

Algo­rith­mic sys­tems are not only designed by pro­gram­mers; many oth­ers, from exec­u­tives to users, have a role in shap­ing them. There­fore, we espe­cial­ly value a par­tic­i­pa­to­ry approach, with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from sci­ence and research, from com­pa­nies and asso­ci­a­tions, civil soci­ety and NGOs, as well as from pol­i­tics and admin­is­tra­tion.

The result

After an open, par­tic­i­pa­to­ry and inter­dis­ci­pli­nary process (in which more than 400 peo­ple have taken part), numer­ous work­shops and con­sul­ta­tions, and a large sur­vey, nine so-called Algo.rules were for­mu­lat­ed. These are a cat­a­logue of for­mal cri­te­ria that, if adhered to, are designed to facil­i­tate the social­ly ben­e­fi­cial design and test­ing of algo­rith­mic sys­tems. Our pur­pose is to lay a foun­da­tion for eth­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tions as well as for the imple­men­ta­tion and enforce­ment of legal stan­dards in this field.

To make the Algo.Rules usable in every­day work, we have con­cretized them in the next step. We offer prac­ti­cal help, which is aimed direct­ly at the design­ers, but also at users of algo­rith­mic sys­tems.

A prac­ti­cal guide sup­ports devel­op­ers and their man­agers in the oper­a­tional­i­sa­tion of Algo.Rules in their every­day work.

The pracit­i­cal guide can be found here.

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion is avail­able on the Algo.Rules web­site.