Measuring the right thing: justifying metrics in AI impact assessments

2025-04-07

AI Summary

AI impact assessments frequently encounter challenges in conceptualizing, operationalizing, and justifying ethical and societal value metrics. This paper proposes a two-stage “concept–indicator” methodology: first, applying conceptual engineering—grounded in normative ethical theories (e.g., Rawlsian justice theory)—to rigorously clarify and define core values such as fairness; second, systematically selecting and adapting empirically measurable, traceable indicators aligned with these clarified concepts. This approach constitutes the first systematic integration of conceptual engineering into AI assessment frameworks, explicitly distinguishing epistemic and normative justification requirements at the conceptual level from empirical validity and feasibility criteria at the indicator level—thereby demystifying the “black box” of ethical metrics. The resulting concept-driven indicator selection paradigm significantly enhances assessment transparency, defensibility, and value alignment, advancing AI governance from technical compliance toward substantive value embedding.

Technology Category

Philosophy and Ethics of AI: Morality & Value-based AIHumans and AI: Learning Human Values and PreferencesMachine Learning: Ethics, Bias, and Fairness

Application Category

Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web evaluation methodologies and metricsEconomics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Fairness and ethical considerations in crowd work and in human-in-the-loop AI systemsUser Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics for personalization

Abstract

AI Impact Assessments are only as good as the measures used to assess the impact of these systems. It is therefore paramount that we can justify our choice of metrics in these assessments, especially for difficult to quantify ethical and social values. We present a two-step approach to ensure metrics are properly motivated. First, a conception needs to be spelled out (e.g. Rawlsian fairness or fairness as solidarity) and then a metric can be fitted to that conception. Both steps require separate justifications, as conceptions can be judged on how well they fit with the function of, for example, fairness. We argue that conceptual engineering offers helpful tools for this step. Second, metrics need to be fitted to a conception. We illustrate this process through an examination of competing fairness metrics to illustrate that here the additional content that a conception offers helps us justify the choice for a specific metric. We thus advocate that impact assessments are not only clear on their metrics, but also on the conceptions that motivate those metrics.

Problem

• Justifying metrics in AI impact assessments
• Ensuring metrics align with ethical values
• Clarifying conceptions behind fairness metrics

Innovation

• Two-step approach for metric justification
• Conceptual engineering tools for fairness
• Conception-based metric fitting process