Dislocated Accountabilities in the AI Supply Chain: Modularity and Developers' Notions of Responsibility

Understand

Responsible artificial intelligence guidelines ask engineers to consider how their systems might harm.

• However, contemporary artificial intelligence systems are built by composing many preexisting software modules that pass through many hands before becoming a finished product or service.
• How does this shape responsible artificial intelligence practice? In interviews with 27 artificial intelligence engineers across industry, open source, and academia, our participants often did not see the questions posed in responsible artificial intelligence guidelines to be within their agency, capability, or responsibility to address.
• We use Suchman's "located accountability" to show how responsible artificial intelligence labor is currently organized and to explore how it could be done differently.