Location: 2271 Angell Hall
Title: Precarious Accurate Predictions in Automated Decision-Making

Abstract:
With the rising temptation to rely on automated decision-making, mere predictive accuracy increasingly becomes the standard. In this talk, I argue that the allure of so-called “precarious accurate predictions”— those where predictive accuracy masks the problematic nature of the underlying reasoning patterns—poses significant ethical and procedural risks. Drawing on insights from philosophy of mind and psychology, I highlight two ways in which these predictions falter under scrutiny: through their reliance on stealth proxies and their susceptibility to illusions of depth. These in turn establish two unmet desiderata for the effective integration of predictive analytics in automated decision-making: that predictive models address proxy discrimination beyond statistical correlations and distinguish between superficial and deep causal-explanatory connections among features. The talk ends by underscoring the urgent need for a critical reevaluation of the prospective use of automated predictions in legal processes, cautioning against their expansion into domains like criminal justice, where they threaten to erode established rights and safeguards.