O Direito à Explicação nas Decisões Automatizadas: uma Abordagem Comparativa Entre o Ordenamento Brasileiro e Europeu

Automated decision-making can bring great benefits to humanity, and it is undeniable that machines pose a danger to human autonomy, as an individual, and can generate potentially discriminatory mechanisms due to the possibility of perverse manipulation of algorithms. Although the artificial intelligence technologies used in automated decision-making are presented as neutral, they are not, and some are even used for modulations of human behavior obtained with the profile data extraction, building a perfect world of personalized consumption. The present study aims to analyze the concept of automated decision-making and the extension of the scope of the right to explanation in the automated treatment of data in the Brazilian system in comparison with the European system. The right to explanation, one of the imperatives of ethical guidelines for reliable artificial intelligence in automated decision-making, is extremely relevant as a criterion opposed to discriminatory mechanisms and combating the opacity of this type of intelligence. The fact is that everything that can be achieved through a degree of automation deserves a recommendable human explanation. In fact, human supervision must guide all stages of the use of artificial intelligence mechanisms. The method used in the present investigation is the hypothetical-deductive, in the approach, and the comparative, in the procedure. The fact is that every automated decision must be explainable, both in terms of its underlying logic and the rationale for the decision. There is also unreasonable to exclude the human element in the review of the automated decision. The present study will observe, by comparative means, the authorizing requirements of the automated decision and its consequences. Also, in order to achieve the desired result, a comparison will be made of the concept of the right to explanation in the European and Brazilian legal systems. As a result of the present study, it was concluded that the European Union treats the automated decision as a prohibition, while in Brazil there is a right to review the automated decision, failing to guarantee that this review is human. Therefore, there is no legal support in Brazil for the right to explanation.

Bach against Modernity

By key standards of what in the eighteenth century and later was considered to be forward-looking and modern—namely to exalt reason (above revelation, whatever the flaws of reason) as arbiter of truth, to exalt human autonomy and achievement, to exalt religious tolerance, to exalt cosmopolitanism, and to exalt social and political progressiveness—Bach and his music reflected and forcefully promoted a premodern world and life view. While we are arguably free to make use of Bach and his music in whatever historically informed or uninformed ways we find fitting, we ought also to be on the ethical alert for a kind of cultural narcissism in which we end up miscasting Bach in our own ideological image and proclaiming the authenticity of that image, and hence its prestige value, in support of our own agendas.

TOWARDS AN INTERPRETATION OF THE PHENOMENA OF DEMON POSSESSED/DEMONIZED CHRISTIANS

In the pre-modern world people generally believed in the supernatural. Individuals and culture as a whole believed in the existence of God (or gods), angels, and demons. The visible world owed its existence and meaning to a spiritual realm beyond the senses. However, such worldviews began to die with the coming of Enlightenment of 17th and 18th centuries. The age of reason, scientific thinking, and human autonomy that characterized the Enlightenment brought to being the so-called natural religion. The result was the disappearance of immanent God (Deism) and the rejection of the socalled “excluded middle” – the unseen world of spirits, and the supernatural. Such attitude may well be summarized in Rudolf Bultmann’ famous statement: “It is impossible to use electric light and the wireless and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical discovers, and at the same time to believe in the New Testament worlds of spirits and miracles.”

AI Systems and Respect for Human Autonomy

This study concerns the sociotechnical bases of human autonomy. Drawing on recent literature on AI ethics, philosophical literature on dimensions of autonomy, and on independent philosophical scrutiny, we first propose a multi-dimensional model of human autonomy and then discuss how AI systems can support or hinder human autonomy. What emerges is a philosophically motivated picture of autonomy and of the normative requirements personal autonomy poses in the context of algorithmic systems. Ranging from consent to data collection and processing, to computational tasks and interface design, to institutional and societal considerations, various aspects related to sociotechnical systems must be accounted for in order to get the full picture of potential effects of AI systems on human autonomy. It is clear how human agents can, for example, via coercion or manipulation, hinder each other’s autonomy, or how they can respect each other’s autonomy. AI systems can promote or hinder human autonomy, but can they literally respect or disrespect a person’s autonomy? We argue for a philosophical view according to which AI systems—while not moral agents or bearers of duties, and unable to literally respect or disrespect—are governed by so-called “ought-to-be norms.” This explains the normativity at stake with AI systems. The responsible people (designers, users, etc.) have duties and ought-to-do norms, which correspond to these ought-to-be norms.

Robot Autonomy vs. Human Autonomy: Social Robots, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the Nature of Autonomy

Social robots are robots that can interact socially with humans. As social robots and the artificial intelligence (AI) that powers them becomes more advanced, they will likely take on more social and work roles. This has many important ethical implications. In this paper, we focus on one of the most central of these, the impacts that social robots can have on human autonomy. We argue that, due to their physical presence and social capacities, there is a strong potential for social robots to enhance human autonomy as well as several ways they can inhibit and disrespect it. We argue that social robots could improve human autonomy by helping us to achieve more valuable ends, make more authentic choices, and improve our autonomy competencies. We also argue that social robots have the potential to harm human autonomy by instead leading us to achieve fewer valuable ends ourselves, make less authentic choices, decrease our autonomy competencies, make our autonomy more vulnerable, and disrespect our autonomy. Whether the impacts of social robots on human autonomy are positive or negative overall will depend on the design, regulation, and use we make of social robots in the future.

Introduction

This chapter begins by analyzing how Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft (GAFAM), along with Alibaba and Tencent from China, dominate and monopolize global markets. It highlights the giant corporations’ control on digital search, digital advertising, cloud infrastructure, social media, digital messaging, mobile operating systems, and other digital markets. It also mentions the internet that enabled a paradigm shift in the development of capitalism and the global concentration of capital. The chapter details how the internet has upset previous institutional balances in liberal democracy by increasing inequality and undermining established news and information ecologies. It points out the realization of citizens of democracies that the free circulation of information, democratic decision-making, and the nature of human autonomy will be increasingly compromised if the digital status quo is allowed to continue.