arXiv subjects

Mackenzie Jorgensen

Publications and source records attributed to Mackenzie Jorgensen.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Negotiating Risk Boundaries in AI for Policing Through Mixed-Stakeholder Deliberation

AI tools are being increasingly adopted in policing in the UK and worldwide. Racial bias is a known and well-documented risk, yet representatives of affected communities are rarely included in decisions about AI adoption. We present results from a mixed-stakeholder deliberation workshop bringing together 30 community representatives, police officers, and academics to assess the risks of 13 AI use cases in policing, with an explicit focus on racial bias. We found that participants were broadly open to AI adoption, rejecting only three use cases outright, most notably recidivism risk assessment, where objections targeted the premise rather than the implementation. Our analysis reveals that foregrounding racial equity did not narrow the deliberation. Instead, discussions gravitated toward a fundamental set of questions: does this tool actually work, will it deliver genuine benefit, and will that benefit extend to everyone? This integrated reasoning, reminiscent of the curb-cut effect in inclusive design, highlights the benefit of incorporating the racial bias lens into the risk-benefit analysis of AI use cases from the outset.

cs.AI↗

arXiv2026

Resisting Humanization: Ethical Front-End Design Choices in AI for Sensitive Contexts

Ethical debates in AI have primarily focused on back-end issues such as data governance, model training, and algorithmic decision-making. Less attention has been paid to the ethical significance of front-end design choices, such as the interaction and representation-based elements through which users interact with AI systems. This gap is particularly significant for Conversational User Interfaces (CUI) based on Natural Language Processing (NLP) systems, where humanizing design elements such as dialogue-based interaction, emotive language, personality modes, and anthropomorphic metaphors are increasingly prevalent. This work argues that humanization in AI front-end design is a value-driven choice that profoundly shapes users' mental models, trust calibration, and behavioral responses. Drawing on research in human-computer interaction (HCI), conversational AI, and value-sensitive design, we examine how interfaces can play a central role in misaligning user expectations, fostering misplaced trust, and subtly undermining user autonomy, especially in vulnerable contexts. To ground this analysis, we discuss two AI systems developed by Chayn, a nonprofit organization supporting survivors of gender-based violence. Chayn is extremely cautious when building AI that interacts with or impacts survivors by operationalizing their trauma-informed design principles. This Chayn case study illustrates how ethical considerations can motivate principled restraint in interface design, challenging engagement-based norms in contemporary AI products. We argue that ethical front-end AI design is a form of procedural ethics, enacted through interaction choices rather than embedded solely in system logic.

cs.AI↗

arXiv2025

Documenting Deployment with Fabric: A Repository of Real-World AI Governance

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly integrated into society, from financial services and traffic management to creative writing. Academic literature on the deployment of AI has mostly focused on the risks and harms that result from the use of AI. We introduce Fabric, a publicly available repository of deployed AI use cases to outline their governance mechanisms. Through semi-structured interviews with practitioners, we collect an initial set of 20 AI use cases. In addition, we co-design diagrams of the AI workflow with the practitioners. We discuss the oversight mechanisms and guardrails used in practice to safeguard AI use. The Fabric repository includes visual diagrams of AI use cases and descriptions of the deployed systems. Using the repository, we surface gaps in governance and find common patterns in human oversight of deployed AI systems. We intend for Fabric to serve as an extendable, evolving tool for researchers to study the effectiveness of AI governance.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2025

Unequal Uncertainty: Rethinking Algorithmic Interventions for Mitigating Discrimination from AI

Uncertainty in artificial intelligence (AI) predictions raises pressing legal and ethical questions for AI-assisted decision-making. This article examines two uncertainty-based algorithmic interventions that act as guardrails for human-AI interaction: selective abstention, which withholds high-uncertainty predictions from human decision-makers, and selective friction, which presents such predictions together with salient warnings about the model's uncertainty. Prior work suggests that uncertainty-based abstention can exacerbate disparities where under-represented groups are more likely to receive uncertain predictions. We provide, to our knowledge, the first doctrinal analysis of uncertainty-based algorithmic interventions under laws from the United Kingdom and examine their consequences through two AI-assisted case studies: consumer credit and risk of reoffending. We show that the use of uncertainty thresholds, though formally neutral, can generate discriminatory effects. We argue that both interventions pose risks of unlawful discrimination, but that selective friction is legally preferable. It preserves access to the prediction and is more likely to satisfy proportionality under the Equality Act 2010. Whether selective friction also improves decision quality in practice is uncertain. We identify conditions under which it may improve or worsen decision quality.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2025

Auditing a Dutch Public Sector Risk Profiling Algorithm Using an Unsupervised Bias Detection Tool

Algorithms are increasingly used to automate or aid human decisions, yet recent research shows that these algorithms may exhibit bias across legally protected demographic groups. However, data on these groups may be unavailable to organizations or external auditors due to privacy legislation. This paper studies bias detection using an unsupervised bias detection tool when data on demographic groups are unavailable. We collaborated with the Dutch Executive Agency for Education to audit an algorithm that was used to assign risk scores to college students at the national level in the Netherlands between 2012-2023. Our audit covers more than 250,000 students across the country. The unsupervised bias detection tool highlights known disparities between students with a non-European migration background and students with a Dutch or European-migration background. Our contributions are two-fold: (1) we assess bias in a real-world, large-scale, and high-stakes decision-making process by a governmental organization; (2) we provide the unsupervised bias detection tool in an open-source library for others to use to complete bias audits. Our work serves as a starting point for a deliberative assessment by human experts to evaluate potential discrimination in algorithmic decision-making.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2024

Bridging Research and Practice Through Conversation: Reflecting on Our Experience

While some research fields have a long history of collaborating with domain experts outside academia, many quantitative researchers do not have natural avenues to meet experts in areas where the research is later deployed. We explain how conversations -- interviews without a specific research objective -- can bridge research and practice. Using collaborative autoethnography, we reflect on our experience of conducting conversations with practitioners from a range of different backgrounds, including refugee rights, conservation, addiction counseling, and municipal data science. Despite these varied backgrounds, common lessons emerged, including the importance of valuing the knowledge of experts, recognizing that academic research and practice have differing objectives and timelines, understanding the limits of quantification, and avoiding data extractivism. We consider the impact of these conversations on our work, the potential roles we can serve as researchers, and the challenges we anticipate as we move forward in these collaborations.

cs.HC↗