The Social Services Focus Area will investigate ADM uses and implications in disability services, child protection, criminal justice and income support.
ADM is increasingly used in the design, delivery and governance of many social services by governments, private and not-for-profit organisations. Influential advocates (e.g. OECD 2017) argue for further automation to promote efficiencies, reduce human errors and bias, and enhance personalised service delivery, choice and resourcing.
Yet, ADM in social services is also highly problematic, with detractors arguing that professionally-trained human decision making is necessary in negotiating service provision to meet complex human circumstances and needs. There are also considerable ethical challenges relating to bias, discrimination and surveillance, particularly when used on disadvantaged populations which rely on social services.
RESEARCH PROJECTS
This project seeks to generate better understandings of the functions, capacities, and normative role of humans within automated decision systems.
Our premise is that everyone should have the opportunity to benefit from digital technologies: to manage their health, access education and services, participate in cultural activities, organise their finances, follow news and media, and connect with family, friends, and the wider world.
This project investigates the extent to which automated decision-making systems impact the provision of consumer insurance via pricing algorithms which may produce unfair outcomes for particular subsets of society by engaging in proxy and price discrimination.
Examining the ways in which automated decision-making systems impact public and shared space via sensors that produce actionable digital simulations, artefacts, and interfaces.
This project aims to collaboratively design, prototype, and pilot an automated data extraction tool to support welfare rights lawyers in making sense of Services Australia (Centrelink) system-generated Freedom of Information (FOI) documents.
Trauma-informed AI: Developing and testing a practical AI audit framework for use in social services
This project seeks to co-design an innovative AI trauma-informed audit framework to assess the extent to which an AI’s decisions may generate new trauma or re-traumatise
This project is a partnership between ADM+S and the New South Wales Ombudsman to map and analyse the use of automated systems in state and local government sectors in New South Wales (NSW).
This project seeks to scope several approaches to deal with Automated Decision-Making and Decision-Support Systems-Related Risks (ADM/DSS RR) through norms and provide an evaluation of those approaches for their consideration in regulatory contexts.
Investigating the increasing use of automated decision-making systems in the provision of automated loans in India.
Assessing prospective harms vs prospective benefits associated with ADM as a first step to amelioration.
The project will provide non-profit CEOs, managers, practitioners and board members with feasible strategies for getting into data analytics or assessing and building their organisation’s data capability.
Identifying the opportunities, enablers and barriers for public interest litigation to promote accountability and fairness in automated decision-making.
What shapes the environmental impacts of data centres cooling infrastructures?
Unpacking the biases in models that may come from the underlying data, or biases in software that could be designed with a specific purpose and angle from the developers’ point-of-view
Examining the challenges to, and opportunities for, liberal and democratic institutions and governance presented by ADM.
Developing a theoretically rich analysis of democracy and freedom given ADM.
Considering ethical approaches in the area of automated decision-making (ADM) and civic life with a focus on civic commitments and concerns.
Operationalising new data partnerships and implementing data analysis to improve non-profit and humanitarian sector work.
Exploring the role of everyday data practices and literacies in automated decision-making.
Examining common themes with respect to the issues raised by the collection, storage, and use of data for ADM across object domains.
Examining the ways in which automated decision-making (ADM) is being integrated into the lives of diverse and non-dominant communities across Australia.
Considering ethical approaches in the area of automated decision-making (ADM) and civic life with a focus on civic commitments and concerns.
Mapping where ADM is and how it is being used in social services beyond Europe and North America, and into the Asia-Pacific region.
Creating a replicable framework for building capacity (expertise, literacy, data partnerships and data governance) to unlock the social value and impact of advanced data analytics, AI and ADM across the not-for-profit sector.
Considering ethical approaches in the area of automated decision-making (ADM) and civic life with a focus on civic commitments and concerns.
This project will create a next generation recommender system that enables equitable allocation of constrained resources.
This project is a review of the current state of ADM implementation, practices and visions in different regions in the Global South.