Abstract
This paper sheds light on how much citizens value different features of public sector algorithms, specifically whether they prioritize effectiveness over transparency and stakeholder involvement in algorithm design or instead see effectiveness as less important. It does so with choice-based conjoint designs that present variants of algorithms used in policing and health care to respondents from representative German samples. Two studies with overall more than 3000 participants show that people are ready to trade away transparency and stakeholder involvement for small effectiveness gains. Citizens thus seem unlikely to demand accountable algorithms even in sensitive areas like policing and health care.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1061-1082 |
| Number of pages | 22 |
| Journal | Public Management Review |
| Volume | 26 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| Early online date | 30 Nov 2022 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2024 |
Funding
The authors disclose receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research has been conducted within the project \u201CDeciding about, by, and together with algorithmic decision-making systems\u201D, funded by the Volkswagen Foundation (Grant Reference 19-0087) We would like to thank Adam Harkens, Tobias Krafft, Johannes Schmees, Wolfgang Schulz, Karen Yeung, and Katharina Zweig for their valuable feedback on the manuscript. We also thank Maximilian Drummond and Malin Gr\u00FCninger for their assistance with preparing the manuscript.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Adam Harkens | |
| Tobias Krafft | |
| Volkswagen Foundation | 19-0087 |