algorithmic transparency

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

the principle that automated decision-making systems — particularly those affecting consequential outcomes such as credit, employment, healthcare, criminal justice, and social welfare — should be open to scrutiny regarding their design, training data, decision logic, and error rates, enabling those affected to understand and challenge decisions made about them; algorithmic transparency is demanded by GDPR's right to explanation, the EU AI Act's requirements for high-risk AI systems, and by civil society advocates who argue that opaque algorithms reproduce and amplify systemic biases while shielding decision-makers from accountability; full algorithmic transparency faces legitimate obstacles including trade secrecy, the complexity of machine learning models whose decisions cannot always be explained even to their designers, and security risks from adversarial exploitation of exposed decision logic