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Alienating social groups
Reifying essentialist categories

Denying people the opportunity to self-identify

Sociotechnical Harms of Algorithmic Systems: Scoping a Taxonomy for Harm Reduction

Shelby et al. (2023)

SourceDOI
Sub-category
Risk Domain
1Discrimination & Toxicity
1.1Unfair discrimination and misrepresentation

Unequal treatment of individuals or groups by AI, often based on race, gender, or other sensitive characteristics, resulting in unfair outcomes and unfair representation of those groups.

complex and non-traditional ways in which humans are represented and classified automatically, and often at the cost of autonomy loss... such as categorizing someone who identifies as non-binary into a gendered category they do not belong ... undermines people’s ability to disclose aspects of their identity on their own terms(p. 728)

Entity— Who or what caused the harm

Human

Due to a decision or action made by humans

AI system

Due to a decision or action made by an AI system

Other

Due to some other reason or is ambiguous

Intent— Whether the harm was intentional or accidental

Intentional

Due to an expected outcome from pursuing a goal

Unintentional

Due to an unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal

Other

Without clearly specifying the intentionality

Timing— Whether the risk is pre- or post-deployment

Pre-deployment

Occurring before the AI is deployed

Post-deployment

Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed

Other

Without a clearly specified time of occurrence

Part of Representational Harms

Other risks from Shelby et al. (2023) (24)

Representational Harms

1.1 Unfair discrimination and misrepresentation
OtherUnintentionalPost-deployment

Representational Harms > Stereotyping social groups

1.1 Unfair discrimination and misrepresentation
AI systemUnintentionalPost-deployment

Representational Harms > Demeaning social groups

1.1 Unfair discrimination and misrepresentation
AI systemUnintentionalPost-deployment

Representational Harms > Erasing social groups

1.3 Unequal performance across groups
HumanUnintentionalOther

Representational Harms > Alienating social groups

1.1 Unfair discrimination and misrepresentation
AI systemUnintentionalPost-deployment

Representational Harms > Reifying essentialist categories

1.1 Unfair discrimination and misrepresentation
AI systemUnintentionalPost-deployment
View all 24 risks from this paper →