Abstract

Models of individual accountability for algorithms' actions fail when a human-algorithm association comes into view as a collective actor. In some situations, human and algorithmic actions are so closely intertwined that there is no longer a linear connection between the emergent collectivity and the complex interactions of humans and algorithms. In such collective decision-making sequences, individual accountability can no longer be attributed. Therefore, a new perspective on human-algorithm associations that captures their emergent properties and their organisational qualities is needed to develop appropriate models of collective accountability.

Our lecture seeks to answer the following questions: How can the encounter between humans and algorithms within such a socio-technical configuration be adequately theorised? Can the configuration itself be understood as a hybrid collectivity? Can actions be attributed to the configuration as a personified collective actor? How will accountability be institutionalised for human-algorithm associations – in centralised or distributed collective forms?

About The Speakers

Anna Beckers, Associate Professor of Private Law and Legal Methodology, Maastricht University, Faculty of Law. Relevant publication: Three Liability Regimes for Artificial Intelligence: Algorithmic Actants, Hybrids, Crowds. Oxford: Hart 2022; Enforcing Corporate Social Responsibility Codes: On Global Self-Regulation and National Private Law, Oxford: Hart 2015. Website: https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/anna.beckers , Twitter: @A__Beckers

Gunther Teubner, Professor emeritus of Private Law and Sociology of Law, Goethe University Frankfurt, previously Otto Kahn Freund Professor, London School of Economics. Relevant publications: Three Liability Regimes for Artificial Intelligence: Algorithmic Actants, Hybrids, Crowds. Oxford: Hart 2022; Constitutional Fragments: Societal Constitutionalism and Globalization, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2012, Networks as Connected Contracts, Oxford: Hart 2011. Website: https://www.jura.uni-frankfurt.de/42847561/List_of_Publications

Online Attendance 

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