Two Means to an End Goal: Connecting Explainability and Contestability in the Regulation of Public Sector AI

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Schmude, Timothée, Yurrita, Mireia, Alfrink, Kars, Goff, Thomas Le, Tschiatschek, Sebastian, Viard, Tiphaine
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Schmude, Timothée
Yurrita, Mireia
Alfrink, Kars
Goff, Thomas Le
Tschiatschek, Sebastian
Viard, Tiphaine
author_facet Schmude, Timothée
Yurrita, Mireia
Alfrink, Kars
Goff, Thomas Le
Tschiatschek, Sebastian
Viard, Tiphaine
contents Explainability and its emerging counterpart contestability have become important normative and design principles for trustworthy AI as they enable users and subjects to understand and challenge AI decisions. However, realizing these principles is difficult, as they assume different meanings in technical, legal, and organizational dimensions of AI regulation. To resolve this conceptual polysemy, in this paper, we present the findings of an interview study with 14 experts to examine the intersection and implementation of explainability and contestability, and their understanding in different research communities. We outline differentiations between descriptive and normative explainability, judicial and non-judicial channels of contestation, and individual and collective contestation action. We further describe the main points of friction in the realization of both principles, including the alignment between top-down and bottom-up regulation, the assignment of responsibility, and the need for interdisciplinary collaboration. Lastly, we formulate three recommendations for AI policy to implement both principles through a Regulation by Design perspective. We believe our contributions can inform policy-making and regulation of these core principles and enable more effective and equitable design, development, and deployment of trustworthy public AI systems.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_18236
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Two Means to an End Goal: Connecting Explainability and Contestability in the Regulation of Public Sector AI
Schmude, Timothée
Yurrita, Mireia
Alfrink, Kars
Goff, Thomas Le
Tschiatschek, Sebastian
Viard, Tiphaine
Computers and Society
Explainability and its emerging counterpart contestability have become important normative and design principles for trustworthy AI as they enable users and subjects to understand and challenge AI decisions. However, realizing these principles is difficult, as they assume different meanings in technical, legal, and organizational dimensions of AI regulation. To resolve this conceptual polysemy, in this paper, we present the findings of an interview study with 14 experts to examine the intersection and implementation of explainability and contestability, and their understanding in different research communities. We outline differentiations between descriptive and normative explainability, judicial and non-judicial channels of contestation, and individual and collective contestation action. We further describe the main points of friction in the realization of both principles, including the alignment between top-down and bottom-up regulation, the assignment of responsibility, and the need for interdisciplinary collaboration. Lastly, we formulate three recommendations for AI policy to implement both principles through a Regulation by Design perspective. We believe our contributions can inform policy-making and regulation of these core principles and enable more effective and equitable design, development, and deployment of trustworthy public AI systems.
title Two Means to an End Goal: Connecting Explainability and Contestability in the Regulation of Public Sector AI
topic Computers and Society
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.18236