Enhancing human agency through redress in Artificial Intelligence Systems
Open accessAbstract
Recently, scholars across disciplines raised ethical, legal and social concerns about the notion of human intervention, control, and oversight over Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems. This observation becomes particularly important in the age of ubiquitous computing and the increasing adoption of AI in everyday communication infrastructures. We apply Nicholas Garnham's conceptual perspective on mediation to users who are challenged both individually and societally when interacting with AI-enabled systems. One way to increase user agency are mechanisms to contest faulty or flawed AI systems and their decisions, as well as to request redress. Currently, however, users structurally lack such mechanisms, which increases risks for vulnerable communities, for instance patients interacting with AI healthcare chatbots. To empower users in AI-mediated communication processes, this article introduces the concept of active human agency. We link our concept to contestability and redress mechanism examples and explain why these are necessary to strengthen active human agency. We argue that AI policy should introduce rights for users to swiftly contest or rectify an AI-enabled decision. This right would empower individual autonomy and strengthen fundamental rights in the digital age. We conclude by identifying routes for future theoretical and empirical research on active human agency in times of ubiquitous AI.
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Current AI systems have very little access for AI monitoring and challenging its decisions.
“Current AI systems have very little access for AI monitoring and challenging its decisions [16].”
From A Review of Trustworthy and Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) (2023) · cites this paper as [16]
AI systems may occasionally be used to shape and influence human behaviour through techniques that seem difficult to identify because they use sub-conscious processes such as unethical persuasion, deceit, swarming, and indoctrination, all of which potentially jeopardise personal sovereignty.
“AI systems may occasionally be used to shape and influence human behaviour through techniques that seem to be difficult to identify because they use sub-conscious processes such as unethical persuasion, deceit, swarming, and indoctrination, all of which potentially jeopardise personal sovereignty.”
From A Review of Trustworthy and Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) (2023) · cites this paper as [16]
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- Authors
- Fanni, R., Steinkogler, V. E., Zampedri, G., & Pierson, J.
- Affiliations
- Centre for European Policy Studies (BE)
- Vrije Universiteit Brussel (BE)
- Corresponding author
- Fanni, Rosanna
- ORCID
- Fanni, Rosanna
- Venue
- AI & SOCIETY
- Published
- 2022-06-05
- Volume
- 38
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 537-547
- ISSN
- 0951-5666 (ISSN-L)
- 1435-5655
- PMC
- PMC9167452
- OpenAlex
- W4281721666
- Cited by
- 66
- References
- 26
- Citations by year
- 2026: 17 · 2025: 25 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 8
- FWCI
- 14.21
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- AI & Society (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
- Social Sciences › Law › Digitalization, Law, and Regulation
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI)
- Keywords
- human agency, redress mechanisms, contestability, AI-mediated communication, mediation theory, AI governance, user rights, vulnerable users, user autonomy, fundamental rights
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