Elisabeth Stockinger, Jonne Maas, Christofer Talvitie, Virginia Dignum
{"title":"Trustworthiness of voting advice applications in Europe.","authors":"Elisabeth Stockinger, Jonne Maas, Christofer Talvitie, Virginia Dignum","doi":"10.1007/s10676-024-09790-6","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) are interactive tools used to assist in one's choice of a party or candidate to vote for in an upcoming election. They have the potential to increase citizens' trust and participation in democratic structures. However, there is no established ground truth for one's electoral choice, and VAA recommendations depend strongly on architectural and design choices. We assessed several representative European VAAs according to the Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI provided by the European Commission using publicly available information. We found scores to be comparable across VAAs and low in most requirements, with differences reflecting the kind of developing institution. Across VAAs, we identify the need for improvement in (i) transparency regarding the subjectivity of recommendations, (ii) diversity of stakeholder participation, (iii) user-centric documentation of algorithm, and (iv) disclosure of the underlying values and assumptions.</p><p><strong>Supplementary information: </strong>The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10676-024-09790-6.</p>","PeriodicalId":51495,"journal":{"name":"Ethics and Information Technology","volume":"26 3","pages":"55"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4000,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11415416/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Ethics and Information Technology","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-024-09790-6","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2024/8/12 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ETHICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) are interactive tools used to assist in one's choice of a party or candidate to vote for in an upcoming election. They have the potential to increase citizens' trust and participation in democratic structures. However, there is no established ground truth for one's electoral choice, and VAA recommendations depend strongly on architectural and design choices. We assessed several representative European VAAs according to the Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI provided by the European Commission using publicly available information. We found scores to be comparable across VAAs and low in most requirements, with differences reflecting the kind of developing institution. Across VAAs, we identify the need for improvement in (i) transparency regarding the subjectivity of recommendations, (ii) diversity of stakeholder participation, (iii) user-centric documentation of algorithm, and (iv) disclosure of the underlying values and assumptions.
Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10676-024-09790-6.
期刊介绍:
Ethics and Information Technology is a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to advancing the dialogue between moral philosophy and the field of information and communication technology (ICT). The journal aims to foster and promote reflection and analysis which is intended to make a constructive contribution to answering the ethical, social and political questions associated with the adoption, use, and development of ICT. Within the scope of the journal are also conceptual analysis and discussion of ethical ICT issues which arise in the context of technology assessment, cultural studies, public policy analysis and public administration, cognitive science, social and anthropological studies in technology, mass-communication, and legal studies.