Seeing Like a Toolkit: How Toolkits Envision the Work of AI Ethics

TL;DR

This paper critically analyzes 27 AI ethics toolkits to reveal how they shape perceptions of ethical work, highlighting gaps in guidance on navigating power dynamics and organizational challenges.

Contribution

It provides a qualitative critique of AI ethics toolkits, exposing assumptions and gaps in supporting ethical work in organizational contexts.

Findings

Mismatch between imagined ethical work and toolkit support

Lack of guidance on navigating power and organizational dynamics

Identification of areas for future toolkit development

Abstract

Numerous toolkits have been developed to support ethical AI development. However, toolkits, like all tools, encode assumptions in their design about what work should be done and how. In this paper, we conduct a qualitative analysis of 27 AI ethics toolkits to critically examine how the work of ethics is imagined and how it is supported by these toolkits. Specifically, we examine the discourses toolkits rely on when talking about ethical issues, who they imagine should do the work of ethics, and how they envision the work practices involved in addressing ethics. Among the toolkits, we identify a mismatch between the imagined work of ethics and the support the toolkits provide for doing that work. In particular, we identify a lack of guidance around how to navigate labor, organizational, and institutional power dynamics as they relate to performing ethical work. We use these omissions to chart future work for researchers and designers of AI ethics toolkits.