For subscribers to the Financial Times, there’s a great little piece (dated yesterday online so I assume in today’s print edition) on the consumer experience of algorithmic fairness and unfairness by the ever-thoughtful and thought-provoking Sarah O’Connor.
O’Connor discusses the black box experience of technology decision-making for customers – particularly in terms of being barred from access to their own accounts – which isn’t improved, or at least isn’t made any less opaque, by the application of the required human overlay if the consumer complains.
As she indicates, it’s rarely clear how fairness fits into this process.
See also: The failures of algorithmic fairness
But is it FAIR?
What to do when the computer says no, Sarah O’Connor, FInancial Times, 5 February 2025
The Sense of Fairness blog 